Sansa and the Giants - an analysis and prediction based on foreshadowing of Sansa's arc in the Vale

[chrisdaw]

I don't think the Winterfell snow castle is nothing to do with this. It's simply Winterfell as it was, before LF the giant destroyed it, and from there it foreshadows LF's downfall.

Dany doesn't have to see it in order for her sun and stars to return to her (bearing a living child is not the heart of the prophesy, that's just another pre-requisite), in a technical sense. But in a literary sense, in a fantasy series created for entertainment, there's no way that happens. If Dany wasn't going to be there to see it then it would not have been included in her laundry list of seemingly impossible epic events that are all going to come to be. No-one writes a story about a tree falling down and no-one there to hear it.

[sweetsunray]

42 minutes ago, chrisdaw said:

I don't think the Winterfell snow castle is nothing to do with this. It's simply Winterfell as it was, before LF the giant destroyed it, and from there it foreshadows LF's downfall.

Dany doesn't have to see it in order for her sun and stars to return to her (bearing a living child is not the heart of the prophesy, that's just another pre-requisite), in a technical sense. But in a literary sense, in a fantasy series created for entertainment, there's no way that happens. If Dany wasn't going to be there to see it then it would not have been included in her laundry list of seemingly impossible epic events that are all going to come to be. No-one writes a story about a tree falling down and no-one there to hear it.

The WF snow castle is a dream. It's repeated a few times that it's a dream. LF dreams of it. Sansa dreams of it.

The snow castle is the metaphor of LF and Sansa building that dream together. But two giants are involved in destroying that dream, and a third giant ends up with his head on a spike on a wall. When we read the passages of the destruction it is not called Winterfell, but the Gatehouse and the castle. And logically the only way for Sansa's and LF's dream to be destroyed it involves the failure of their plans with the Vale, because that is what they both hope to use for that dream. 

I find it rather strange that you argue that Sansa will not be the actual witness to what is foreshadowed 4 times in Sansa's own POV (with the length of 2 paragraphs to half a chapter), but one fragment in a sentence in Dany's POV is the evidence that Dany MUST witness it.

I think we are done discussing this. If you don't accept the evidence I provided and unable to recognize how much Sansa's involvement and presence is included during hte foreshaodwing, fine. But it's hardly a position and argument you can use while you simultaneously think a fragment alone suffices to argue that Dany will witness it. And that you then try to "teach" me how what makes "literary" sense after the OP I wrote just makes my jaw drop. Your claim that it would only make sense if Dany is a witness to all the pre-requisites while Sansa should not only makes sense if the books were the story of only one lead character, if the story is solely about Dany. If you believe that, fine. I don't however. Basically, your criticism comes down to the OP not fitting with your beliefs what ought to happen for Dany's arc. I accept that people have pre-determined expectations for a certain character (including Sansa) and that my OP clashes with their expectations and/or hopes, and that they reject the OP because of that. But it does not make my OP invalid. 

[LmL]

6 hours ago, sweetsunray said:

I think it falls into the echo category. The description scene of Ser Hugh's death matches the visual symbolism of the cosmic disaster of the past: a comet hitting a moon can be seen as a lance together with long night references. But it always struck me how the paragraphs right after Ser Hugh's death were so personal for Sansa: it's one of the few scenes where we can read her reflect on it. When I realized the name of the mountain is the Giant's Lance, pieces started to fall together. And of course later foreshadowing scenes: Sansa looking down on the Gates of the Moon and thinking of the people there as ants she wishes to stamp out, and the snow castle destruction, combined with variable scaled giants makes it too much a disaster on human scale and Westeros scale.

You made the point that several events in history or that we so far have witnessed in the books are echoing events of the cosmic disaster (from women dying in childbirth, rebirth of the dragons, etc) on Planetos' scale and dusrface. I thinkt this should apply for foreshadowed events as well. So, while you can use the same foreshadowing for another moon disaster or the past moon disaster, it is precise and specific enough for a Vale disaster that involves Sansa to serve as a parallelling echo.

I agree with all of that. Rear-shadowing and foreshadowing work basically the same way, and its sometimes hard to figure out what refers to past events or future events, especially when these echo each other.

I think it's well possible that Martin is using this as a cloaking device. We can pick up on these patterns and echoes but its still quite a challenge to figure out whether its a future or past event we are talking about, or both. 

[LmL]

I think if we get any kind of epic natural disaster. or magical / natural disaster, Dany will absolutely be at the center of it. Also, I think everyone will witness it. It's going to be a world-shaping event. Mountains blow in the wind for both Sansa and Dany; that's because Sansa and Dany are both very similar in terms of lunar symbolism. They are both playing into the archetype of the moon maiden, and that's what the mountains blowing in the wind is really about (in my opinion, of course). That's why they have many parallel symbols - think of the Sansa moon blood scene I broke down in last podcast (for those of you who might have listened / read it). 

Personally I think Dany blowing the dragonbinder horn will play huge part in setting things off, but that's just my best guess of course.

 

[sweetsunray]

22 minutes ago, LmL said:

I think if we get any kind of epic natural disaster. or magical / natural disaster, Dany will absolutely be at the center of it. Also, I think everyone will witness it. It's going to be a world-shaping event. Mountains blow in the wind for both Sansa and Dany; that's because Sansa and Dany are both very similar in terms of lunar symbolism. They are both playing into the archetype of the moon maiden, and that's what the mountains blowing in the wind is really about (in my opinion, of course). That's why they have many parallel symbols - think of the Sansa moon blood scene I broke down in last podcast (for those of you who might have listened / read it). 

Personally I think Dany blowing the dragonbinder horn will play huge part in setting things off, but that's just my best guess of course.

 

I agree if it is disaster at a universal or cosmic scale. But not necessarily a local event, even if it is a consequence of a global event (like the horn or second moon). A character can't be in the multiple places to witness different resulting disastrous events from it on the surface. So some characters will experience a tidal wave, others an earthquake, a volcano somewhere else and an avalanche at yet another location. But I'm not yet even convinced whether the (natural) disasters have to occur simultaneously. They may be, but not necessarily so. We don't see a perfect simultaneous occurrence of the war results either... but rather a domino effect in a timespan of 3 years so far.

[chrisdaw]

7 hours ago, sweetsunray said:

The WF snow castle is a dream. It's repeated a few times that it's a dream. LF dreams of it. Sansa dreams of it.

The snow castle is the metaphor of LF and Sansa building that dream together. But two giants are involved in destroying that dream, and a third giant ends up with his head on a spike on a wall. When we read the passages of the destruction it is not called Winterfell, but the Gatehouse and the castle. And logically the only way for Sansa's and LF's dream to be destroyed it involves the failure of their plans with the Vale, because that is what they both hope to use for that dream. 

I find it rather strange that you argue that Sansa will not be the actual witness to what is foreshadowed 4 times in Sansa's own POV (with the length of 2 paragraphs to half a chapter), but one fragment in a sentence in Dany's POV is the evidence that Dany MUST witness it.

The WF snowcastle is a dream in the sense it is WF as it was, and can never be again. Sansa builds it from memory, but it's not just the structure that it represents, it's her family and life before the destruction, it's her naïve self as she was then. She could rebuild WF but it can never be what the snowcastle represents again, just as Sansa can never again be who she was. The giant came and destroyed it. The significance of the passage is for Sansa to recognise that a giant came and destroyed it all and to identify the giant. She must connect the last dot, she considers Lysa having been crazy and killing her husband, but she doesn't connect that murder or the letter back to LF.

MMD's prophecy is not some hidden foreshadowing. It's not something that can and would be missed by most readers. It's large, it's epic and it's there in your face, as it is Dany's. It's in world recognised, she says it to Dany and Dany remembers and considers it during the series. It's an apparent element of the story, of her story. It's not at all a valid comparison to the scattered pieces of hidden foreshadowing you're pulling together here.

If there is to be an avalanche before Sansa leaves the Vale then there will be two in the series. Seems unlikely but not impossible. And the first will not bring down the Eyrie, likely they'll be up the Eyrie and survive it, while it crushes a besieging force at the mountain's foot. Like the crushing ants scenario.

[sweetsunray]

21 minutes ago, chrisdaw said:

The WF snowcastle is a dream in the sense it is WF as it was, and can never be again. Sansa builds it from memory, but it's not just the structure that it represents, it's her family and life before the destruction, it's her naïve self as she was then. She could rebuild WF but it can never be what the snowcastle represents again, just as Sansa can never again be who she was. The giant came and destroyed it. The significance of the passage is for Sansa to recognise that a giant came and destroyed it all and to identify the giant. She must connect the last dot, she considers Lysa having been crazy and killing her husband, but she doesn't connect that murder or the letter back to LF.

MMD's prophecy is not some hidden foreshadowing. It's not something that can and would be missed by most readers. It's large, it's epic and it's there in your face, as it is Dany's. It's in world recognised, she says it to Dany and Dany remembers and considers it during the series. It's an apparent element of the story, of her story. It's not at all a valid comparison to the scattered pieces of hidden foreshadowing you're pulling together here.

If there is to be an avalanche before Sansa leaves the Vale then there will be two in the series. Seems unlikely but not impossible. And the first will not bring down the Eyrie, likely they'll be up the Eyrie and survive it, while it crushes a besieging force at the mountain's foot. Like the crushing ants scenario.

And that dream is destroyed by 2 giants, but not the giant LF - a doll at a scale of the castle like a living giant, and SR at a scale of a mountain to the castle. The significance of the passage is not just Sansa recognizing the past, but with the hints of the Long Night it establishes near future timeline.

Correct, MMD's prophecy is not some hidden foreshadowing, nor is GoHH's a hidden foreshadowing that directly shows the reader the way to the snow castle scene and tells us that snow castle scene is a foreshadowing scene.

And so far you have failed to prove that MMD's prophecy implies that Dany must be a direct witness to the sea being dry and mountains blowing like leaves. It can be an element of her story without her being a witness to it, logically and literary. She saw the foreshaodwing of Robb Stark with a wolf's head in mute appeal. Apparently, the Red Wedding is part of her story. But she was never a witness to it. She has not even heard of it yet. Bran has a dream of Arya and Sansa in the shadow of 3 much speculated looming characters. Apparently it's part of Bran's story, even impacting him, and yet he is never a direct witness to the events.

So, I still maintain that an avalanche will happen in the Vale while Sansa is there, that it will be the eventual downfall of LF by the hand of Sansa in the Vale, regardless whether Dany is there or not, and that there only will be one avalanche in the Vale. And it ties to Sansa because the first foreshadowing includes 2 paragraphs of personal reflection by Sansa, which are otherwise curiously absent, in King's Landing (and not the Vale, though it is about the Vale). GoHH's prophecy links Sansa to personally slaying of a Giant, which is again witnessed in the snow castle scene at the Eyrie, and involves building a dream about WF in cooperation with LF - which is exactly what we've seen LF and Sansa do since that chapter. If you want to fit my OP within your expectations of Dany's arc then by all means do it. If you want to reject my OP because of what you expect to happen within Dany's arc then perhaps it would be better if you write your own OP about an avalanche in the Vale with no Sansa present and Dany witnessing it.

As for them moving to the Eyrie... that I'm sorry is not a realistic claim at all. Everybody moved down to the Gates of the Moon because of winter. Nobody will go up to the Eyrie thatt's somehwere at 3000-4000 m high in winter, when it's warmer at the Gates and food is present. Even the lowest waygate Stone is snowed in already as are the mountain passes for visitors going to the Gates.

 

[chrisdaw]

Random visions are not a prophecy handed directly to a character to think on, that relate to a significant event of theirs. Those are given and not returned to, and while they will all come to pass the general reader and definitely no in-world characters are going to put nearly any of them together on the fly. The MMD prophecy is written to be put together. It's a list of seemingly impossible occurrences, so that when they come to be they are identified and overwhelm. That's why it's given to Dany and she thinks about it, so it's not forgotten and will be identified, Dany is going to see these things and think 'oh wow, it's really happening', and the reader is going to follow in those thoughts.

[LmL]

11 hours ago, sweetsunray said:

I agree if it is disaster at a universal or cosmic scale. But not necessarily a local event, even if it is a consequence of a global event (like the horn or second moon). A character can't be in the multiple places to witness different resulting disastrous events from it on the surface. So some characters will experience a tidal wave, others an earthquake, a volcano somewhere else and an avalanche at yet another location. But I'm not yet even convinced whether the (natural) disasters have to occur simultaneously. They may be, but not necessarily so. We don't see a perfect simultaneous occurrence of the war results either... but rather a domino effect in a timespan of 3 years so far.

I agree with all of that @sweetsunray. That's the pattern of the ancient myths - different disasters (or different parts of the same huge one) in different places different myths. 

[sweetsunray]

13 hours ago, chrisdaw said:

Random visions are not a prophecy handed directly to a character to think on, that relate to a significant event of theirs. Those are given and not returned to, and while they will all come to pass the general reader and definitely no in-world characters are going to put nearly any of them together on the fly. The MMD prophecy is written to be put together. It's a list of seemingly impossible occurrences, so that when they come to be they are identified and overwhelm. That's why it's given to Dany and she thinks about it, so it's not forgotten and will be identified, Dany is going to see these things and think 'oh wow, it's really happening', and the reader is going to follow in those thoughts.

#1 GoHH gave a prophecy about a character to think on. Then there's George's SSM remark about being careful with prophecies and the in-book reminder they're basically a pain in the ... And I would hardly call visions written in by the author as 'random'. They are the foreshadowing tool par excellence, because one cannot lie in those. Whereas prophecies are used to misdirect.

#2 Dany can also hear about these and think "oh wow, it's really happening". You may not like that, but the prophecy did not say "When you see x and when you see y then ..."

[StarkofWinterfell]

I find it hard to believe that Sansa will slay UnGregor. There's simply no way that will be possible.

[chrisdaw]

Sansa's champions will destroy Cersei's including Robert Strong in a trial of seven. And Sansa will very likely obtain information regarding Strong's weakness from Qyburn. By then the snows may have even hit KL or it may happen in HH, making another castle made of snow. But it wouldn't wipe away her killing LF, just makes it a double layered piece of foreshadowing.

[sweetsunray]

18 hours ago, StarkofWinterfell said:

I find it hard to believe that Sansa will slay UnGregor. There's simply no way that will be possible.

Fully agree. Hence, why it's not claimed in the OP

[Prof. Cecily]

@sweetsunray, how do you feel your OP  stands up after the publication of the Alayne chapter from TWOW?

[sweetsunray]

31 minutes ago, Prof. Cecily said:

@sweetsunray, how do you feel your OP  stands up after the publication of the Alayne chapter from TWOW?

My OP was written after the publication of the Alayne chapter from tWoW and the contentual knowledge of it was in the back of my mind. Hence, I still feel the same about it, overall. The sole thing I have changed my mind about it the possibility that Shadrich and his companions are there for Sansa's benefit and that Shadrich is not who he implies he is to Brienne either.

[Prof. Cecily]

1 minute ago, sweetsunray said:

My OP was written after the publication of the Alayne chapter from tWoW and the contentual knowledge of it was in the back of my mind.

Aah.

I read the chapter after having read your essay and this entire thread.

The chapter

Spoiler

has really put me off subtleties. With food supplies being such a critical issue throughout the winter campaigns in the North, I found Sansa's complacent reaction to this monstrosity rather unnerving. Her only concern seems to be a passing thought to the need to replenish the lemons available in the Vale.

 

[sweetsunray]

@Prof. Cecily

My personal opinion of Sansa is somewhere in the middle. She starts in the books as a very priviledged, self-entitled character who regards commoners or those born those far below her in status in superficial ways. She basically lives mentally in an ivory tower and without political thought beyond her personal benefit and crushes. She improves in King's Landing insofar she can extend empathy through prayer to the Mother for those who do not answer her aesthetical values. She certainly does not want to harm the populace. But she does not actually grasp the full extent of what is necessary to be a good ruler, or how she personally can do more for peope other than pray for them. Of course, at King's Landing she is not in any actual position to do much at all. But her acquaintance with Margaery reveals that charity is a novel idea to her (though obviously her parents would have been charitable people. Sansa simply never paid much attention to it before). In the Vale she loses her trueborn status, and for the first time has to function as someone belonging to the lesser nobility, never without losing awareness of her true status. We see her learn and experience her personal influence on other people, and a growing awareness of character traits and wishes of people she would have regarded beneath her notice before: Lothor likes Mya, Mya's pining over a lost cause, handling and calming Sweetrobin, the mutilated Marillion lamenting his fate (someone who tried to rape her and eagerly looked forward to see Lysa punish her, but is innocent of the crimes he's accused of). And in aFfC she gradually experiments with her agency with the most direct relations to people in her immediate surroundings, temporarily or more permanent, both in situations where her personal benefit and safety is independent and depedent of it. I don't think that the end of aFfC and thus the start of tWoW we can expect Sansa to grasp that lemons for the Vale is a fanciful folly in comparison to actual hunger and shortage commoners and Northerners alike are suffering. She was a pampered, priviledged summer child the most part of her life, after all. A few months living like a bastard daughter cannot rectify that quickly.

In that respect, an avalanche (a natural disaster that one cannot predict, other than literary foreshadowing) destroying the immediate nearby stock, storage and supplies or how it may draw mountain clans to want to attack the Bloody Gate and conquer the Gates of the Moon might be exactly the trick to drive the point home to her. Even in King's Landing, she never lacked for delicatesses, notwithstanding the people rioted over the price and availability for bread, as their children died of hunger. Sansa lived through a food embargo put in place by Renly and Tyrells, an actual attack on King's Landing, a minor food blockage of the Eyrie, and yet always knew affluence. At worst there were no fresh eggs to be begotten at the Eyrie during the minor siege of the Lords Declarant. Hence, she thinks nothing of ordering lemons for the Vale for an extravagance as winter has come, and people are starving. And since Sansa's empathy and awareness grows with her own experience in similar situations it seems almost inevitable that circumstances will force her to experience it in a manner that cannot be negotiated. 

[Prof. Cecily]

Thanks for sharing your considerations, @sweetsunray.

I daresay it's shallow of me to say so, but Sansa's reaction to the lemon shortage reminded me of Scarlett O'Hara's reaction to that wonderful hat given to her during the siege of Atlanta. (book, of course, not movie).

In any case, reading the musing of such creative posters here makes the wait for the publication of tWoW quite endurable.

Time to head down to the village to buy some lemons. I'd buy blood oranges, too, but they're out of season here.

[Seams]

I'm glad this thread is having a revival, after a year of analysis and thought. As I re-read the series of OP posts, a new connection came to me, helping to resolve a question that had been nagging at me: why does GRRM introduce the Widow of the Waterfront? You just posted a comment on the "Who is Haldon Halfmaester?" thread about all of the minor characters in AFfC who seem to have hidden significance. The Widow appears in ADwD (Tyrion VII) but I think she fits with your observation.

My guess is that there is a deliberate connection between the Widow of the Waterfront and Alyssa Arryn, whose statue plays a role in Tyrion's trial by combat and then sits in pieces nearby as Sansa builds her snow castle.

Of course, GRRM doesn't usually give us a precise one-to-one match between parallel characters, so we may see some of Catelyn or Lysa, some of Petyr Baelish and some of Sansa or Arya in the story of the Widow.

First, here is your good analysis of the connection between Sansa and Alyssa's statue, from Part 4 of your OP:

On 11/30/2015 at 1:15 PM, sweetsunray said:

Prediction 4 - Sansa

So, we have figured out the foreshadowing of an earthquake and avalanche...

When Sansa first steps outside to feel the snow fall in the godswood, the statue of the weeping woman is mentioned.

At the center of the garden, beside the statue of the weeping woman that lay broken and half-buried on the ground, she turned her face up to the sky and closed her eyes. (aSoS, Sansa VII)

The statue was damaged and fell during Tyrion's trial by combat between Bronn and Ser Vardis Egen. It is the image of Alyssa Arryn, a woman who never shed a tear for all the men she had lost in her life, and would know no rest in death until her tears touched the earth where her loves ones were buried. The waterfall of the Giant's Lance is called Alyssa's tears, because the water turns to mist before it can touch the ground of the valley.

Pale white mists rose off Alyssa's Tears, where the ghost waters plunged over the shoulder of the mountain to begin their long tumble down the face of the Giant's Lance. Catelyn could feel the faint touch of spray on her face.
Alyssa Arryn had seen her husband, her brothers, and all her children slain, and yet in life she had never shed a tear. So in death, the gods had decreed that she would know no rest until her weeping watered the black earth of the Vale, where the men she had loved were buried. Alyssa had been dead six thousand years now, and still no drop of the torrent had ever reached the valley floor far below. Catelyn wondered how large a waterfall her own tears would make when she died. (aGoT, Catelyn VII)

The weeping woman features in both Catelyn's arc and Sansa's. Without going into Catelyn's arc too much, I do wish to note that Catelyn wishes for space and time to weep, but keeps telling herself she must remain strong. She does weep, but often wipes her tears away and moments before her death even rakes her face open to stop them. Like Alyssa, Catelyn loses her husband and in her mind all her children. And like Alyssa she gets no rest or reprieve in death, for she was resurrected by Lord Beric Dondarrion. It is curious though that Sansa gets to stand beside the statue, that was broken and damaged when her mother was there last and how the "broken" and "half-buried" might be a reference to a broken woman who is basically half-dead.

The story of Alyssa not weeping though also ties back to the paragraph that follows immediately after the description of Ser Hugh's death in Sansa's tourney chapter. It is perhaps one of the most chilling paragraphs in Sansa's chapters.

Jeyne Poole wept so hysterically that Septa Mordane finally took her off to regain her composure, but Sansa sat with her hands folded in her lap,

watching with a strange fascination. She had never seen a man die before. She ought to be crying too, she thought, but the tears would not come. Perhaps she had used up all her tears for Lady and Bran. It would be different if it had been Jory or Ser Rodrik or Father, she told herself. The young knight in the blue cloak was nothing to her, some stranger from the Vale of Arryn whose name she had forgotten as soon as she heard it. And now the world would forget his name too, Sansa realized; there would be no songs sung for him. That was sad. (aGoT, Sansa II)

We know Sansa weeps for Lady, for Bran, later for her father, and in private, behind a closed door for her brother Robb and her mother. But she cannot weep for the knights and strangers of the Vale. The paragraph makes one wonder whether she will weep for Robert Arryn, or Harrold her betrothed. Most likely the answer is that she will not shed one tear for them, not even if she experiences a positive romance with Harrold. It is not her home, ultimately; nor will she regard them as her family. Keeping in mind what she went through in King's Landing, then getting her hopes raised and be so close to the point where she can reveal who she is to raise an army for the North and then witness it falling apart with such senseless massacres from avalanches and mountain clans, a numb emotionless response is almost to be expected - forget it, detach, move on, carry on, just a bunch of strangers, they are nothing to me.

The short paragraph after in Sansa's chapter of the Hand's Tourney especially reflects that "carry on" attitude.

After they carried off the body, a boy with a spade ran onto the field and shoveled dirt over the spot where he had fallen, to cover up the blood. Then the jousts resumed. (aGoT, Sansa II)

While previously I remarked on the blue cloak (it's a repeat mention), this time I wish to emphasize the "stranger" word being used. Because Sansa does meet a "stranger from the Vale" during the tourney - Littlefinger. He talks overly familiar to her without ever even introducing himself. Septa Mordane must point out to her who he is, and even then he does not engage into any introduction. Instead he brushes her cheek and strokes her hair.

When Sansa finally looked up, a man was standing over her, staring. He was short, with a pointed beard and a silver streak in his hair, almost as old as her father. "You must be one of her daughters," he said to her. He had grey-green eyes that did not smile when his mouth did. "You have the Tully look."

"I'm Sansa Stark," she said, ill at ease. The man wore a heavy cloak with a fur collar, fastened with a silver mockingbird, and he had the effortless manner of a high lord, but she did not know him. "I have not had the honor, my lord."
Septa Mordane quickly took a hand. "Sweet child, this is Lord Petyr Baelish, of the king's small council."
"Your mother was my queen of beauty once," the man said quietly. His breath smelled of mint. "You have her hair." His fingers brushed against her cheek as he stroked one auburn lock. Quite abruptly he turned and walked away. (aGoT, Sansa II)

Aside from being a total creep to Sansa, it identifies him as a third death - we have blue cloaked House Arryn and the stranger from the Vale, Petyr Baelish. And of course if she confronts Littlefinger with his lies, especially in anger over the dream collapsing, and is in a position to see him dead, then chances are high she would bat away a tear for him.

A kiss . . .

(I pasted in the quotes you cited and started to use red highlighting to differentiate them but realized you had used red highlighting for emphasis in some of the cited material, so I used the quote box for those passages.)

Sansa does not cry in the passages you cite; Alyssa did not cry in life.

But the connection between Catelyn and Alyssa is also clear. The gods have decreed that Alyssa should know no rest until her tears reach the valley where "the men she had loved were buried." This seems a better match for Catelyn as Lady Stoneheart, than for Sansa. (At this point in the books, at any rate.) As you point out, the dying Catelyn tore her own face instead of weeping - a particularly brutal example of the pun on "tear" and "tear". We know that Brandon Stark was buried at the Winterfell crypt but another man she loved, Ned, has not been buried (as discussed in another of your great threads). Hoster Tully will be "buried" in the river, in keeping with Tully tradition, if he counts as a man she loved. And Petyr Baelish might qualify as a man Catelyn loved. If you are right about him dying in the avalanche, this would make the Vale his burial place, which fits well with the Alyssa's Tears motif.

Tyrion meets the Widow of the Waterfront in the common room of an inn, just as he was taken prisoner by Catelyn at the inn at the crossroads. Tyrion compares the Merchant's House inn to the Eyrie, where he was able to look down from a high room, and where he was also a prisoner.

Like Sansa and Catelyn, the Widow also has a notable absence of tears, as the teardrop tattoo that identified her as a slave was cut away when she was freed by her late husband:

There was something vulpine about the way the woman sat in her corner by the courtyard, something reptilian about her eyes. Her white hair was so thin that the pink of her scalp showed through. Under one eye she still bore faint scars where a knife had cut away her tears. . . . Tyrion did not fail to note how well chosen her "customary table" was; solid stone at her back, a leafy alcove to one side for entrances and exits, a perfect view of the inn's front door, yet so steeped in shadow that she herself was nigh invisible. (ADwD, Tyrion VII)

"Vulpine" means "like a fox." Remember how Sansa and Lysa both wear white fox fur in the snow castle scene? But she is also reptilian, in Tyrion's initial description. I will welcome other interpretations, but I am hung up on a theory that Littlefinger is a hidden Velaryon descendant. I think the fox reference is telling us that the Widow is part of the Alyssa / Lysa / Catelyn / Sansa symbolism but the reptile is telling us that she also provides clues about Littlefinger. The connection to Littlefinger is underscored by her husband's unique "behind the scenes" role in the Volantine economy:

Whilst other men built the ships and sailed them, he built piers and storehouses, brokered cargoes, changed money, insured shipowners against the hazards of the sea.

Like Littlefinger, the widow has an outsider, "low born" status that her business associates never forget.

When the widow reveals that she has known all along the identity of the dwarf before her, she says, "'Kinslayer, kingslayer, murderer, turncloak. Lannister.' She made the last a curse." Catelyn showed similar contempt for Jaime Lannister, but came to grudgingly respect Tyrion, and abided by the outcome of his "trial by combat" at the Eyrie, allowing him to go free. In the Widow's scene, she shows respect for Tyrion, but tells Ser Jorah she does not trust him and that he is like dozens of other Westeros knights who paint themselves as pure but have darker motives underneath. But the Widow agrees to help Tyrion and Ser Jorah to board a ship after Tyrion (with some help from Ser Jorah) wins his "trial by combat" with Penny, who attacks him while the Widow looks on. The Widow seems to admire Tyrion's compassion for the grieving girl, saying, "Knights defend the weak and protect the innocent, they say. And I am the fairest maid in all Volantis." Although spoken with irony, this brings us back to Sansa who believes that true knights exist and who really is one of the most beautiful maids in Westeros.

In keeping with the larger prediction of this thread, the Widow sends Tyrion, Ser Jorah and Penny on a ship that is bound for destruction in a giant storm; she knows it is doomed. I think this is a match for your earthquake prediction in Sansa's thread, except it is Sansa, Littlefinger and Sweetrobin who are headed for the "shipwreck" when the avalanche falls. No person at the Eyrie predicts this or knowingly sends the travelers into peril, but the broken statue of Alyssa or the need for her tears to reach the vale may foreshadow the fall of the mountain.

The Widow chapter includes numerous references to severed heads, and here the parallels with the Catelyn / Sansa arcs get very complex. Penny attacks Tyrion because sailors from Westeros killed her brother, hoping to use his severed head to gain the reward offered by Cersei for causing Tyrion's death.

Tyrion and Ser Jorah pass a cart of melons on the Long Bridge that takes them to the inn. Remember that Penny and Oppo's act included a fake beheading in which a helmet with a melon inside flies off into the crowd. I believe that melon "head" lands in the lap of Ser Balmon Byrch, husband of Falyse Stokeworth. Eventually, he will be killed by Bronn, who was Tyrion's champion in the trial by combat at the Eyrie, and who won the match, in part, because the statue of Alyssa Arryn fell on his opponent. It is complex, as I say, but I think this gives us one more link for the chain that ties these two arcs together. (And the Puns and Wordplay thread already discussed the melon / lemon wordplay that may provide another link through Sansa's fixation on lemons.)

Tyrion and Ser Jorah also pass three severed heads displayed on the Long Bridge. Ser Jorah reads the inscriptions describing their crimes:

"The woman was a slave who raised her hand to her mistress. The older man was accused of fomenting rebellion and spying for the dragon queen."

"And the young one?"

"Killed his father."

Tyrion seems to identify with the executed man who killed his father. I may be wrong, but I suspect that the woman's head represents Ser Jorah, who overstepped his station by kissing Daenerys. Maybe the older man actually represents Penny, who I suspect has a hidden identity but who also starts to symbolize Littlefinger as the arc progresses.

I know I already said that the Widow (or her late husband) symbolizes Littlefinger. I believe that one of the ways GRRM creates parallel characters without being too obvious about it is to have one character "hand off" a role to another relatively minor character. For instance, I think this happens when Kingsguard Arys Oakheart dies but then Kingsguard Balon Swann shows up in Dorne. I think Qhorin Halfhand may represent an aspect of Lord Commander Jeor Mormont, who can't literally accompany Jon on the mission to gather intelligence about the wildlings. (In fact, I suspect the scene where Mormont, the raven and Qhorin eat the three hard-boiled eggs in Mormont's breakfast represent the division of Mormont into three beings. The raven survives to be a sort of mentor to Jon when he becomes Lord Commander.) In Tyrion's arc, I think the Widow of the Waterfront hands off to Penny the job of symbolizing Petyr Baelish.

When they get on board the ship, Penny does almost nothing but cry, so we know that she doesn't represent Alyssa or the other women who don't cry. Or maybe her crying represents the fulfillment of the Alyssa story, with Penny's tears transported to their prophesied destination.

Remember how Petyr teaches Sansa how to build important parts of her snow castle? Pack snow around sticks to make bridges, make the window frames for the glass house, make white lumps to represent snow-covered gargoyles. Similarly, Penny teaches Tyrion how to joust and how to be a little person. Petyr also effectively persuades Sansa that she "is" Alayne and he is her father. Penny's assumption of a fatherly role is also spelled out:

"You mustn't mock him. Don't you know anything? You can't talk that way to a big person. They can hurt you. Ser Jorah could have tossed you in the sea. The sailors would have laughed to see you drown. You have to be careful around big people. Be jolly and playful with them, keep them smiling, make them laugh, that's what my father always said. Didn't your father ever tell you how to act with big people?"

"My father called them smallfolk," said Tyrion, "and he was not what you'd call a jolly man. . . . Still, I take your point. I have a deal to learn about being a dwarf. Perhaps you will be good enough to teach me, in between jousting and pig-riding."

"I will, m'lord. Gladly. . . . " (ADwD, Tyrion IX)

Here's the math part of this post: If Penny is to Tyrion as Littlefinger is to Sansa, then the beheading of Oppo / Groat may be like the beheading of Ned Stark. Oppo / Groat was beheaded because of a crime Tyrion was accused (and convicted) of committing. Ned was beheaded because he was thought to be committing treason against King Joffrey. Is it possible that Ned was executed for a crime committed by Littlefinger?

This ties back to the Sansa and the giants story because Sansa rips the head off of Sweetrobin's doll. I believe the breakfast scene at King's Landing, when Arya throws a juicy blood orange at Sansa, foreshadowed Ned's beheading: Sansa told Joffrey and Cersei that the Starks secretly planned to leave the city and this led to Ned's death. The orange symbolized Sansa having blood on her hands. I know many people in this forum have theorized that the beheading of Sweetrobin's doll might represent the death of Littlefinger and fulfillment of the vision of the Ghost of High Heart, who sees a maid slay a giant. But there is another argument that the beheading of the doll somehow comes back to Tyrion, who is referred to as a giant.

Here's another twist: Gregor Clegane appears to have died and was posthumously beheaded as an indirect result of Tyrion's trial-by-combat, in which Tyrion was represented by Oberyn Martell. Tyrion was found guilty when Oberyn died, but the "giant" Gregor was beheaded even though he won the trial, representing Cersei. It's sort of like the death of the "innocent" Oppo / Groat, who also died because Tyrion was found guilty. (Although we suspect Gregor deserved to die anyway for all of his crimes, and we have no reason to believe that Oppo was a violent, unprincipled hell-raiser.)

Just one of the many complicated parallel sets of clues GRRM constructs for us. I think it points to Littlefinger having a deeper motive toward treason and rebellion than the desire for "chaos" to which he admits. I suspect Penny is not the innocent she claims to be, and I suspect that Petyr Baelish is the guy who should have been beheaded when Ned died.

[sweetsunray]

On 12/5/2017 at 11:42 PM, Seams said:

You just posted a comment on the "Who is Haldon Halfmaester?" thread about all of the minor characters in AFfC who seem to have hidden significance.

Watch this thread

You are making great contributions to the Tears and Widow parallels, especially in relation to Tyrion too.