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Thanks, Evolett! As usual, you have added so much to my tentative attempts to make sense of some of these themes. I reread your Fisher Queen analysis and it explains so many threads and symbolic locations in the books - not just in Dany's arc. And of course Tyrion's work in the drains at Casterly Rock should be considered as part of the discussion of flow (as well as the sew / sow / sewer wordplay we discussed earlier). Does the wolf / flow wordplay tie right into flowers? Are flowers the opposite of wolves? Or are they two sides of the same coin, mirror images but not opposites?

That word "lumpy" had nagged at me when I was reading about the Flowstone Yard, but I couldn't remember why it was significant. Nice catch on the "Lumpyhead" connection. I love it when things start to fall into place. Like a jigsaw puzzle that gets easier as you go along.

As for the flowstone taking its name from the stone that is literally melted by dragon fire, it occurs to me that Bran refers to the "stark" stones of the ruined Winterfell and "stark" bare stone mountaintops. Maybe the melted flowstone of Harrenhal represents what happens when Starks and Targaryens do battle.

Here's a little bit more on flow and rivers that I wrote on another thread a little while ago. It occurred to me that wet nurses are part of the flow motif, and Macgregor of the North had been discussing the origins of Old Nan and why she had come to Winterfell as a wet nurse.

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Throne / Thorn

Wolf / Flow / Flower / flour --> rivers, mothers, wet nurses

Swords / Wards

Dawn / Wand

Horn / Rhoyne

Unfortunately, this is going to be longer than I have been aiming for with this thread. I think I've found some wordplay that fills a gap between some other important pieces.

Isobel Harper first laid out and explanation of the Iron Throne as the stem of a rose, using the thorn / throne pun as a hint. So the ruler who sits on the throne is the symbolic flower - a rose - on this long stem filled with sharp points:

On 5/18/2016 at 9:42 AM, Isobel Harper said:

Thorn/Thorne/Throne  The Iron Throne is much like a rose.  When one thinks of the Iron Throne and of a rose, one thinks of the top: the seat and the actual flower.   In reality, there are thorns/swords underneath that can prick someone. 

Recently, I started trying to work out wordplay using the mirror image words wolf and flow. Flow is ambiguous enough that it seems to apply to rivers but also to the airflow of someone like the dying King Joff and to flowing milk from a mother or a wet nurse. 

On 5/25/2016 at 0:07 PM, Seams said:

If there's a unifying theme to the three puns in this comment, it's rivers.

So humans and rivers can both be choked, which brings me to my next possible pun pair: wolf and flow. ...

I'm only beginning to think about why or how wolf and flow might be used as opposites, but it might have to do with the direwolves biting and tearing off "arms" while the flow places seem to be associated with armaments: Tyrion defending the river, soldiers drilling and squires polishing armor [in the Flowstone Yard at Harrenhal], Rhaegar and Robert engaged in combat at the Ruby Ford. ...

Then I realized that there could be a connection between the word flow and flowers, similar to the wordplay that we discussed earlier linking sewing (such as embroidering or mending) and sewers (as in plumbing). So the flow / flower connection means that the wolf / flow pair seems to be bringing us back to Isobel Harper's good insight about the thorn / throne pair.

On 5/27/2016 at 10:57 AM, Seams said:

Does the wolf / flow wordplay tie right into flowers? Are flowers the opposite of wolves? Or are they two sides of the same coin, mirror images but not opposites?

Here's a little bit more on flow and rivers that I wrote on another thread a little while ago. It occurred to me that wet nurses are part of the flow motif, and Macgregor of the North had been discussing the origins of Old Nan and why she had come to Winterfell as a wet nurse.

I now suspect that wolf and flow are not meant to be opposites, necessarily. I am thinking that they are intended as balancing forces of some kind. When the idea of balancing forces came to me, I realized that this wordplay could explain some important things: Ned represents the wolf, obviously. Catelyn, from Riverrun, represents flow, as in a flowing river. Their marriage was a good one because they represented balancing forces.

But balance for a wolf can also be achieved by unifying with a flower. So the marriage of Sansa and Willas Tyrell might have been a good one. Maybe Sansa's betrothal to Joffrey made some sense, too, because he was the occupant of the Iron Throne. Using Isobel Harper's metaphor, Joffrey was the rose atop the thorny stem.

But we had earlier considered the flower / flour pun. This gets a little convoluted in its use of puns, so bear with me. The flower / flour pun came back to me suddenly when I considered Theon (at the instigation of Ramsay Snow, who was disguised as Reek) killing the miller's boys. A miller's job is making flour. A miller was the father of the boys who were killed in place of Bran and Rickon. So Theon killed two "flours" and strung them up on the wall at Winterfell. Many chapters before that, when the direwolf pups were found, Theon urged that they be killed. Why does Theon want to kill both wolfs and flow(er)s?

After a recent reread of Catelyn IX, the last Catelyn POV of AGoT, I have been convinced that Robb was never intended to be the King in the North or that he was doomed to have a short reign. Robb had Hoster Tully's eyes, according to Hoster on his deathbed, and he was born at Riverrun. Technically, Robb was Ned's son (I don't doubt that), but all the symbolic references were about Robb as a man with Tully blood. (Tangent: Which creates an interesting balancing force again, because Robb and Jon growing up together represented a wolf / flow duality again.) Further evidence of Robb's river connection (and, thus, his "flow" symbolism) comes in his scene with Catelyn at Oldstones, talking about the need for Robb to have an heir to prevent Sansa's husband, Tyrion, from becoming Lord of Winterfell:

The lid of the sepulcher had been carved into a likeness of the man whose bones lay beneath, but the rain and the wind had done their work. The king had worn a beard, they could see, but otherwise his face was smooth and featureless, with only vague suggestions of a mouth, a nose, eyes, and the crown about the temples. His hands folded over the shaft of a stone warhammer that lay upon his chest. Once the warhammer would have been carved with runes that told its name and history, but all that the centuries had worn away. The stone itself was cracked and crumbling at the corners, discolored here and there by spreading white splotches of lichen, while wild roses crept up over the king's feet almost to his chest.

It was there that Catelyn found Robb, standing somber in the gathering dusk with only Grey Wind beside him. The rain had stopped for once, and he was bareheaded. "Does this castle have a name?" he asked quietly, when she came up to him.

"Oldstones, all the smallfolk called it when I was a girl, but no doubt it had some other name when it was still a hall of kings." She had camped here once with her father, on their way to Seagard. Petyr was with us too . . .

"There's a song," he remembered. " 'Jenny of Oldstones, with the flowers in her hair.' "

"We're all just songs in the end. If we are lucky." She had played at being Jenny that day, had even wound flowers in her hair. And Petyr had pretended to be her Prince of Dragonflies. Catelyn could not have been more than twelve, Petyr just a boy.

Robb studied the sepulcher. "Whose grave is this?"

"Here lies Tristifer, the Fourth of His Name, King of the Rivers and the Hills." Her father had told her his story once. "He ruled from the Trident to the Neck, thousands of years before Jenny and her prince, in the days when the kingdoms of the First Men were falling one after the other before the onslaught of the Andals. The Hammer of justice, they called him. He fought a hundred battles and won nine-and-ninety, or so the singers say, and when he raised this castle it was the strongest in Westeros." She put a hand on her son's shoulder. "He died in his hundredth battle, when seven Andal kings joined forces against him. The fifth Tristifer was not his equal, and soon the kingdom was lost, and then the castle, and last of all the line. With Tristifer the Fifth died House Mudd, that had ruled the riverlands for a thousand years before the Andals came."

"His heir failed him." Robb ran a hand over the rough weathered stone.

ravenous reader pointed out earlier in this thread that the king on the grave represents and foreshadows the death of Robb, who is making his way toward the Red Wedding. [I'm just rereading this post and noticed there is probably a rain / reign pun: Robb is bareheaded - i.e., not wearing a crown - because the rain (reign) has ended. I guess we'll have to examine this pun in a Reynes of Castamere context.] But this is a king of rivers, covered with roses and associated with Jenny who wore flowers in her hair. Catelyn wore flowers in her hair here, too. So the message, drawing on the hair / heir pun, is that Robb is the heir of flow and rivers. I think the heir who is going to fail Robb is not his failure to impregnate Jeyne Westerling, but the hapless Edmure Tully. Technically, Robb was not above Edmure in the line of succession for Riverrun, I know. But it would not surprise me if we see an end of the Tully line with Edmure.

But the king on the sepulchre at the same time represents another doomed king, King Robert, with his warhammer. The roses up to his chest could tell us that this was an Iron Throne kind of a king. [Note: Interesting that Tristifer had a nickname - the Hammer of Justice. This name seems to suggest a unity between Robert's warhammer and Ned's sword, Ice. Just Ice. Maybe another example of balancing forces?]

I'm almost done! This last thought ties into the long post (around p. 3 of this thread, I think) from ravenous reader where she tied swords/wards/words to rune/ruin. Some of her original thoughts about Theon both protecting and being protected by the Starks (while being under constant threat, if his father rebels again) might help us to puzzle out Theon's role in the killing of the "flours" and the idea of killing the wolf pups. Was GRRM showing us that Theon could be dissuaded from killing baby wolfs when the right person has him in hand (Ned is his guardian) but Theon could be persuaded to kill young "flowers" (the miller's boys) when he falls into Reek's or Ramsay's hands?

I had another brainstorm about GRRM using a German word as a pun. The German word for wall is Wand. I think this is a pun on Dawn. I think the Wall symbolizes the sword Dawn (and/or vice versa). Maybe the sword is in the Wall, part of the magic that is holding it together?

Finally, taking us back to the rivers motif, ravenous reader thought that Rhoynar might be part of the runes wordplay. It could be. What struck me immediately is the common letters with the word horn. I wonder whether Arya, with her wolf Nymeria and her parallels with the historic figure of Princess Nymeria of the Rhoyne, will end up being the one to blow one of the magical horns?

On 4/12/2016 at 11:37 PM, ravenous reader said:

From this perspective, it is interesting to revisit the idea of a human 'ward' who in a sense is a human 'sword,' which you've previously raised.

...we may understand that Theon is under the protection of Lord Stark who is his guardian.... 

However, the darker, thinly-veiled, unspoken subtext here is that it's the other way around -- Theon in actual fact is there to protect the Starks!  ... Ned has brought back with him to Winterfell as 'protection' ... against Balon Greyjoy's potential future wrath. 

Resonating with all these themes, it is noteworthy that the first time we are introduced to Theon, his function is to unsheathe and present Ned's sword for an execution.  In the relevant scene we have a congregation of all the elements of 'ward',' sword', and 'word' (as well as 'ruin' and 'rune').  It's noteworthy that the 'word' and the 'sword' are combined as one in the Stark injunction that 'the one who passes the sentence should swing the sword.'  ...

... the Wall of ice (like sword 'Ice') itself is a magical ward, and that this magic can only hold so long as the Night's Watch men remain 'true' to their word.  ... The Wall not only contains runes upon it, the runes are essentially 'locked beneath' it, indicating that magic is the foundation guaranteeing its very structural integrity; ... the wall exists as some form of protection (from whom and for whom, as in the case of Theon as ward, is as yet not completely clear, and may yet still prove equivocal), from a certain point of view then, the Wall is a gigantic Rune! 

When 'all' is revealed, and Dawn resurfaces, it will no doubt have a major role to play in the promised, eponymous 'War for the Dawn' (especially since GRRM is so coy about it).  ... In Dawn, we have the combination of a number of elements we've mentioned.  It's a sword, word, ward, rune, and ruin all-in-one (having been forged from a burnt out piece of rock; a fallen star is a kind of ruined star which is powerful nevertheless...'ruin' is etymologically derived from the root for to 'fall' or 'collapse').

As an aside, the mention of the 'Rhoynar' reminded me of our 'rune/ruin' puns, considering its similar sound.  Could there be something in it?  In addition, the Rhoynar are a ruined culture, an 'orphaned' people, who according to the wiki used 'water magic' and other spells to fend off danger (which is a kind of 'rune'!) as well as being related to 'swords' in a way, considering they were reportedly the first to introduce the secrets of working iron into weapons.  With their relationship to Nymeria and Arya, their lore is bound to resonate with Arya's arc later on, if it doesn't already (her magical warging powers and close association with water, e.g. in Braavos).

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pies / spies

Just one more then I'll go away (for today).

Margaery says to Joffrey, "Widows Wail wasn't made for slicing pies."

But was it made for Lysene spies? (Such as Varys, who was born in Lys.)

Where is Widow's Wail?

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On 03/04/2016 at 8:40 PM, evita mgfs said:

Thanks!:wub:

Thanks!:D

I look forward to reading your link.  Nothing sounds crackpot from you - you are well-informed.  Share my Star/Stark with LML.  His theories lead me to a connection of "star" in the name "Stark" and that Bran is the Fallen Star - K.:cheers:

I think I have listened to your podcasts - although I may have the wrong name.  Sorry if I do!

Or he could be "Bran dark son"-T

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I didn't mean to equate Joffrey as the rose necessarily, although yes, that's a good point.  A king/queen could be seen as the bud of the rose.  (Let theorists who believe Jon Snow - the blue rose ala HotU prophecy - ends up as King by the end of the series have a field day with that.)

As for horn parallels, I often wonder if Mormont's raven isn't saying "horn" instead of "corn" at times.  Birds are limited in what sounds they can pronounce,  and human ears will fill in the gaps to what they hear/want to hear when something is unclear.  (ie aural illusion)  

Corn is a seed.   Seed (ala the Nights King) is an allusion to soul.  There's another thread tending at the moment with regard to the Horn That Wakes the Sleepers being a direwolf.  Direwolves are (per Jon who views Ghost as another part of him) an extension of the soul.  So corn=soul and corn=horn=direwolf=soul. 

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Lysa is connected to Lys via similar spelling and Tears of Lys, which she used to kill her husband.  Lysa dies and is replaced with MYRanda.  Anything intriguing about Myr that Myranda might be connected to?  Only thing I can think of is the Myrish torture device that Aerys used on Brandon Stark. :P

Also, could this make Tysha connected to Tyrosh in some way?

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9 hours ago, Isobel Harper said:

Lysa is connected to Lys via similar spelling and Tears of Lys, which she used to kill her husband.  Lysa dies and is replaced with MYRanda.  Anything intriguing about Myr that Myranda might be connected to?  Only thing I can think of is the Myrish torture device that Aerys used on Brandon Stark. :P

Also, could this make Tysha connected to Tyrosh in some way?

Lys / Lysa / lies

Justice / just Ice

This is so good! I had just been thinking about Lys (see below) but the connection to Lysa hadn't even crossed my mind. Excellent! It is Lysa's lies about the Lannisters murdering Jon Arryn that start the ball rolling again in the whole Stark vs. Lannister blood feud. And your mention of the Tears of Lys triggers two possible associations for me: Alyssa's Tears, both the Vale legend and the waterfall at the Eyrie, and the "weeping" of the Wall when the weather is warm. Maybe both of these kinds of tears will lead to insights about this next bit wordplay.

Here's why I had been contemplating Lys:

When I noticed that "Hammer of Justice" (just Ice) nickname, I realized that Ned's sword is immediately introduced to the reader as an instrument of justice. But do we agree with the justice it dispenses? Is the death penalty really a just punishment for a Night's Watch deserter if he left his job because he saw the power of the White Walkers? Why is it appropriate that this deserter be beheaded but Jon Snow is later spared for his desertion attempt? Is the same sword dispensing justice when Ned himself is beheaded by it? So justice may be a relative thing. Maybe that's why Ned's sword is just called Ice instead of Justice.

These thoughts about the sword Ice and the newly recognized line of wordplay around its name led me to go back to the list of known Valyrian steel swords. The location of the sword called Truth is unknown, but it originated in Lys. So we have Truth coming from Lys (lies) but the Truth has been lost. Sounds like a lesson right out of "Literary Themes for Dummies," if ever there was one.

It seems to me that the swords Truth and (Just)Ice should be a pair. The original sword Ice was lost centuries ago, so the sword Ned Stark used was the second (at least) greatsword Ice. My guess is that the missing original Ice will be found as part of the resolution of the saga. It would not surprise me at all if both of these lost swords are among several swords buried (swords in the darkness) in the Wall and are part of the magic that holds the wall together.

Which brings me back to the "weeping" of the Wall and the deadly Tears of Lys. Maybe it's not warm weather that causes the Wall to weep, but lies. Truth holds it together and lies cause it to erode. This is actually consistent with a couple of Celtic legends: The talking stone of truth, also called the Stone of Destiny, would cry out when the rightful king stood on it; and this:

An ancient high king of Ireland, Cormac, owned a wonderful gold cup given to him by the sea god. If three lies were spoken over it, it would break in three; three truths made it whole again. When Cormac died, the cup vanished, as the sea god predicted it would.

Vanished cup, vanished swords. And the idea that lies break things and truth mends things might also parallel part of Arya's training with the Kindly Man, where she has to tell him three truths after each day spent out among the people.

I wonder whether the sword Widow's Wail, which seems to be AWOL now (although Tommen may have given it or Hearteater to Ser Loras), ties into this theme, too. Lysa and Alyssa are both famous widows. A "wail" can also be called a "cry". So it could be part of the "Tears of Lys" association. Alternatively, the word "wail" could be a little anagram wordplay by GRRM, and represent "law" and thus tie back into the "just Ice" wordplay. Widow's Wail was used to destroy an important book, and this thread has already had good input from a number of people about swords / words and the words of the Night's Watch vow having magical power. Damn you, GRRM! These puns torment and delight me! When will it ever end?

And the Lys / Lysa / lies pun, with the idea that lies cause disintegration brings us back to a brilliant thread from sweetsunray that you and I followed avidly: Sansa and the Giants. This thread laid out the complex foreshadowing that predicts an avalanche at the Eyrie. Lysa's lies along with Alyssa's tears (of Lys) could be the symbolic catalyst that get the ball rolling in this avalanche. I love it when the metaphors come full circle.

As always with each GRRM pun that seems (I almost wrote "seams"!) to be sorted out, however, a new pun emerges. If tears are associated with lies and the breaking of walls and mountains, then we should probably examine the tearing of fabric alongside the tears (weeping) associated with destruction. Tears / tears may represent two kinds of destruction of Westeros society. (Doh! And the night is dark and full of Terrors! Add that into the mix!) Which might also tie into your excellent insight about Lysa being replaced by Myranda. Myrish lace is the fabric all the highborn ladies of Westeros desire the most. But is it like the spiderweb woven by Varys the spider, a native of Lys?

 

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A new word game? : Alliteration

An idea has been percolating in my mind for a little while and today I ran across a passage that might be an example of what I'm looking for. Here's the quote:

...[T]hey were all dead now, even Arya, everyone but her half-brother, Jon. Some nights she heard talk of him, in the taverns and brothels of the Ragman's Harbor. The Black Bastard of the Wall, one man had called him. Even Jon would never know Blind Beth, I bet. That made her sad.
The clothes she wore were rags, faded and fraying, but warm clean rags for all that. Under them she hid three knives—one in a boot, one up a sleeve, one sheathed at the small of her back. Braavosi were a kindly folk, by and large, more like to help the poor blind beggar girl than try to do her harm, but there were always a few bad ones who might see her as someone they could safely rob or rape. The blades were for them, though so far the blind girl had not been forced to use them. A cracked wooden begging bowl and belt of hempen rope completed her garb. (ADwD, The Blind Girl)

The thing that struck me about the passage was the reference to Jon as the Black Bastard at the same time Arya refers to herself as Blind Beth. Both with double letters B. It didn't seem like a coincidence to me and, as I say, seemed like a possible clue to something I thought might be a GRRM code phrase:

But my Devan has learned his letters, and young Steffon and Stannis as well. (ACoK, Davos I)

"He is a mute, but we have been teaching him his letters. He learns quickly." Glover drew a dagger from his belt and gave it to the boy. "Write your name for Lord Seaworth."
There was no parchment in the chamber. The boy carved the letters into a wooden beam in the wall. W … E … X. He leaned hard into the X. When he was done he flipped the dagger in the air, caught it, and stood admiring his handiwork. (ADwD, Davos IV)

Learning to read and write is referred to as learning letters or knowing your letters. Could GRRM be telling us that certain letters will teach us something or allow us to gain insights within the subtext?

The BB excerpt (above) referring to Jon and Arya made me think that there might be a pattern in alliteration - the occurrence of the same letter or sound at the beginning of adjacent or closely connected words. Jon and Arya might share a letter because - ta da! - they are both descendants of Bran the Builder. I realize, though, that I would have to search for BB references to other Starks with connections to Bran the Builder, and I have not yet done this.

Even GRRM's double-R middle initials seemed like a clue - maybe he uses alliteration as a technique in all of his books because of the hint contained within his own name on the dust jacket. This quote from Tyrion made me think that GRRM wants us to see a "matter of great import" whenever we see "one letter in two copies":

"For the eyes of Doran Martell, Prince of Dorne." Tyrion peeled the cracked shell away from his egg and took a bite. It wanted salt. "One letter, in two copies. Send your swiftest birds. The matter is of great import." (ACoK, Tyrion IV)

 

But then it crossed my mind that the letter Tyrion gave to Pycelle was true, but it was also a trap. On the other hand, the intention was to determine whether Pycelle would read the letter. Maybe that's what GRRM wants us to do, too; read his letters; fall into his trap by reading the truth.

Here are a few more BB excerpts and phrases from the text that seem potentially significant, particularly for Jon:

The Red Keep was full of cats: lazy old cats dozing in the sun, cold-eyed mousers twitching their tails, quick little kittens with claws like needles, ladies' cats all combed and trusting, ragged shadows prowling the midden heaps. One by one Arya had chased them down and snatched them up and brought them proudly to Syrio Forel … all but this one, this one-eared black devil of a tomcat. "That's the real king of this castle right there," one of the gold cloaks had told her. "Older than sin and twice as mean. One time, the king was feasting the queen's father, and that black bastard hopped up on the table and snatched a roast quail right out of Lord Tywin's fingers. Robert laughed so hard he like to burst. You stay away from that one, child." (AGoT, Arya III)

(The idea that a "black bastard" cat might represent Jon Snow as the "real king of the castle," and would snatch a roasted body from Tywin's fingers, seemed particularly rich with potential symbolism.) 

Once a man had said the words his blood was black. Black as a bastard's heart. He'd had Mikken make a sword for Arya once, a bravo's blade, made small to fit her hand. Needle. (ADwD, Jon VI)

bastard blade

black brother

bastard boy

bastard brother

Blind Bastard - nickname for the Tyroshi ship captain Davos sailed with, "though he was neither blind nor baseborn," who "lost his head, for the crime of trading weapons to the wildlings." (ASoS, Davos V)

Bastard of Bolton

Stannis had been a younger son living in the shadow of his elder brother, just as Jon Snow, bastard-born, had always been eclipsed by his trueborn sibling, the fallen hero men had called the Young Wolf. (ADwD, Melisandre I)

I admit, though, this is my first day considering this idea, and what is really needed is an army of readers looking for alliteration, to see if there are patterns. I know that Barristan the Bold and the Brotherhood without Banners are hardly connected to Jon or Arya or Bran the Builder at this point, if at all. The same is true of Blind Ben Beesbury and Bertram Beesbury. So I may be reading too much into my narrow selection of examples.

Still, I found some examples featuring the word "letter" that might be part of a pattern. This one might connect an important son of the Reach to Garth Greenhands:

When he found Maester Aemon in the rookery, he gave him Jon's letter and blurted out his fears in a great green gush of words. (AFfC, Samwell I)

Jon has black blood, and Sam has green words. Sounds about right.

This one isn't alliteration, but it is Cersei with a letter and an LC - Lann the Clever?

Thanks to Stannis and his filthy letter, there were already too many rumors concerning Tommen's parentage. Cersei dared not fan the fires by insisting that he drape his bride in Lannister crimson, so she yielded as gracefully as she could. (AFfC, Cersei III)

The LC example may just undermine my point, though. "Lord Commander" and "Long Claw" don't seem connected to Lann the Clever at all. And it's not entirely clear to me why GRRM would want to throw in initials that allude to Bran the Builder or Garth Greenhands or Lann the Clever, if that's what the game is. So let's put that on the back burner and focus on the repeated letters.

Maybe the alliteration is no more or less than a writing technique to add a dash of poetry to the prose, and it carries no extra meaning. Still, it seems as if there is something going on with this.

Here are just a few more examples of the word "letters" in a passage that is loaded with accompanying alliteration. If anyone can see a pattern, or if you can come up with meaningful examples that might help to sort out a pattern, please dive in.

Varys preferred orphan boys and young girls. He chose the smallest, the ones who were quick and quiet, and taught them to climb walls and slip down chimneys. He taught them to read as well. We left the gold and gems for common thieves. Instead our mice stole letters, ledgers, charts … later, they would read them and leave them where they lay. Secrets are worth more than silver or sapphires, Varys claimed. Just so. I grew so respectable that a cousin of the Prince of Pentos let me wed his maiden daughter, whilst whispers of a certain eunuch's talents crossed the narrow sea and reached the ears of a certain king. (ADwD, Tyrion II)

He read the letter from the Shadow Tower again, sharpened a quill, and unstoppered a pot of thick black ink. He wrote two letters, the first to Ser Denys, the second to Cotter Pyke. Both of them had been hounding him for more men. Halder and Toad he dispatched west to the Shadow Tower, Grenn and Pyp to Eastwatch-by-the-Sea. The ink would not flow properly, and all his words seemed curt and crude and clumsy, yet he persisted. (ADwD, Jon III)

He was not wrong. Davos sat beside his candle and looked at the letters he had scratched out word by word during the days of his confinement. I was a better smuggler than a knight, he had written to his wife, a better knight than a King's Hand, a better King's Hand than a husband. I am so sorry. Marya, I have loved you. Please forgive the wrongs I did you. Should Stannis lose his war, our lands will be lost as well. Take the boys across the narrow sea to Braavos and teach them to think kindly of me, if you would. (ADwD, Davos IV)

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George is infamous for abusing alliteration as a technique, so I think you're likely to go quite made searching for cryptic word clues based on alliteration. But who knows. I'd believe nearly anything in the way of cryptic Martin ideas at this point. 

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On 6/1/2016 at 3:14 PM, LmL said:

George is infamous for abusing alliteration as a technique, so I think you're likely to go quite made searching for cryptic word clues based on alliteration. But who knows. I'd believe nearly anything in the way of cryptic Martin ideas at this point. 

You're probably right. Now that I'm looking for them, I see them everywhere. There are still some possible patterns, but it would probably require a PhD-level effort to sort them out.

 

On 6/1/2016 at 5:32 PM, Isobel Harper said:

I don't recall if I mentioned this on this thread...

Harren the Red = red herring

The curse of Harrenhal doesn't stem from any Harren but from Quentyn Qoherys, who was castrated and left to bleed to death in the Harrenhal godswood. 

Excellent pun.

The wiki tells me that it was Gargon Qoherys, known as Gargon the Guest, who died in the godswood at Harrenhal. Grandson of Quenton. Good alliteration in both names.

An old, dumb thought I'll finally put out here just to see if I can get it out of my head.

When the bannermen insist on crowning Robb Stark, they immediately call him King in the North. Have we seen this term used before? The old Stark kings were called the Kings of Winter but everyone eventually seemed to recognize that their territory was The North.

The abbreviation of King in the North could be KITN - looks like kitten. The abbreviation of King of Winter could be KOW - looks like cow.

There have been several notable kittens in the books - Princess Rhaenys had a kitten, King Tommen is given kittens by Lady Margaery, Sansa imagines playing with kittens when Olenna Redwyne suggests that she could marry her lame grandson, Willas. Also, as a kid, Joffrey kills a pregnant cat in an attempt to impress King Robert, who is instead disgusted. If I had to draw a conclusion, I might say that kittens represent immature royal or high-born people. If the abbreviation for Robb's title is supposed to be compared to the other kittens in the story, it might be that Robb is shown as someone who will not get a chance to grow up. I hate to think that the same fate is in store for Sansa and Willas. I suspect that Tommen is not long for this world and we already know what happened to Rhaenys, although I've seen some good posts in the forum that theorize that her cat, at least, is still around King's Landing.

If there is supposed to be a cow association for the Kings of Winter or for Jon Snow as a likely upcoming King of Winter, I think the association is with milk. There is a lot of discussion around wet nurses and milk brothers and things that are as white as milk. I just saw something today where one of Stannis's men says Jon has milkwater in his veins. Since we know that Jon has the blood of the First Men in his veins, is milk supposed to represent the blood of the first men? I know it can't be that simple, as I've seen Cersei described as having milky-white skin.

Here's a thought: Kittens --> cats --> cattle. Maybe the King of Winter / KOW logically extends the word "cat" to show that he will reach maturity. And this opens the door to shadow cats, Catelyn as Cat, Cat of the Canals and other cat symbolism and association.

If anyone sees any additional examples of either kittens or cow-related imagery, feel free to add them by reply.

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On 1.6.2016 at 8:06 PM, Seams said:

The LC example may just undermine my point, though. "Lord Commander" and "Long Claw" don't seem connected to Lann the Clever at all. And it's not entirely clear to me why GRRM would want to throw in initials that allude to Bran the Builder or Garth Greenhands or Lann the Clever, if that's what the game is. So let's put that on the back burner and focus on the repeated letters.

I need to catch up on the latest posts here.... 

Just wanted to say perhaps you're right - Lord Commander and Long Claw can be connected to Lann the Clever - via Jamie Lannister, LC of the Kingsguard and member of a house represented by a beast with claws. Didn't Mormont or Jon say something about Longclaw being a fitting name because both bears and direwolves have claws? 

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49 minutes ago, Evolett said:

Just wanted to say perhaps you're right - Lord Commander and Long Claw can be connected to Lann the Clever - via Jamie Lannister, LC of the Kingsguard and member of a house represented by a beast with claws. Didn't Mormont or Jon say something about Longclaw being a fitting name because both bears and direwolves have claws? 

This is so great! You are so smart!

I had another thought, reading those three passages that I pulled out of the hat to illustrate the possible Bran the Builder, Garth Greenhands and Lann the Clever allusions: all refer to blood. Jon's blood was black because he had taken his vows; Sam is speaking in a great green gush - but gush is a word that often describes blood, and maybe words are blood for Sam, who is all about books. (Not to mention the words / sword pun, discussed elsewhere on this thread.) And Cersei, bless her heart, would love to see Tommen drape his bride in Lannister crimson - she would be delighted to see Margaery bleed to death instead of marrying her son. So these could all be references to the blood of the first men at turning points in the lives of their descendants.

I wonder whether there are hidden Durran Godsgrief allusions in the text that will lead us to hidden descendants of this fourth of the legendary founding figures? Supposedly the House Durrandon line married into the Baratheon line, so there might be DG or GG references in connection with Mya Stone or Edric Storm or Gendry. Or maybe there is someone out there who will surprise us.

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  • 2 weeks later...

swords / wards / stewards

On 2/14/2016 at 11:59 AM, Seams said:

As I was re-reading some early Bran POVs, I started to wonder about Little Walder and Big Walder, so frequently referred to as Catelyn's wards. Suddenly the similarity between "wards" and "swords" struck me.

...

stew / steward - We see sister stew and singer stew and later get a complex lesson about the varied translations of the Selaesori Qhoran, including stinky steward and/or Hand of the King. How are stews and stewards linked, if at all?

It's a tribute to GRRM's creative genius (or evidence of my own thick-headedness) that I have been actively thinking about puns and wordplay for several months and only just made a connection among swords, wards and stewards. Which probably helps to clarify stew and stinky stewards as well.

Someone posted a thread about "wishing" that R+L=J would not be true, and I decided to throw in my two cents about virtual father/son relationships that may offer clues to parenthood or may just make the point that paternal bonds don't require a biological basis to be "real." I knew I wanted to make a point about the importance of Jeor Mormont's relationship with Jon Snow, and it suddenly dawned on me that stew / stewards has to be connected to the extensive swords / wards wordplay that we have already discussed. I don't know why it took me so long to see it. I'm sure you all spotted it and assumed we had already covered this angle.

Here's what I wrote on the other thread:

From the Aegon IV and Blackfyre story, we know that the giving of a family sword is an extremely important sign of a father's relationship with a son. Jon initially isn't terribly thrilled with Long Claw, but it's significant that Jeor Mormont personalized it, gave it to him and that he accepted it. He also came back and accepted it again when he returned after deserting and recommitted himself to the Night's Watch. The final line of that chapter is Mormont saying, "Put on your sword." I think we are supposed to contrast Ned's unnecessary but "just" beheading of the Night's Watch deserter in the first Bran POV with Mormont's forgiveness of Jon's desertion. Ned is actually flawed; Mormont is the better "father" in this situation.

Because Ice is such an important sword, and because there is a pun throughout the books on "Ice" and "eyes," sometimes a man doesn't literally give a sword to a boy or young man, but there will be a line about, "he has his father's eyes." Hoster Tully says that Robb has his eyes; Tyrion says that the dying Joffrey has Jaime's eyes.

Because the Wall is made of Ice, and the men of the Night's Watch are the "watchers on the Wall," they all get their ice / eyes from being in the Night's Watch. Maester Aemon has been at the Wall so long that he no longer sees through his real eyes but through his Ice / Night's Watch eyes. But I digress.

In the Puns and Wordplay thread, one of the first rhyming pairs that intrigued me was the words "wards" and "swords." I think Theon Greyjoy is the personification of the sword Ice. In the crypt after Ramsay's wedding, Theon admits to Lady Dustin that he always wanted to be a Stark. I think he will somehow get his wish before the books are finished, either fulfilling his destiny as the living embodiment of the sword Ice, or some other form of "legitimization."

... Jon is Mormont's steward but he is also a steward of the Night's Watch in general (as opposed to a ranger or builder). Off the top of my head, I would guess that GRRM is telling us that there are lots of ways to be someone's ward (adopted child) or sword - just as stew can have many different ingredients but still be stew.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Just kind of spitballing here...  Breaking one's fast (eating breakfast):  One breaks their fast in the morning, ie after dawn.  Arya makes a connection between hunger and love in AFfC.  To paraphrase, the Kindly Man asks Arya if she's hungry, to which she admits that she is (via internal monologue) but not for food (ie but rather for love).  The Starks in particular have been hungering for love and reconnection throughout the whole series, although I feel that the constant state of war since AGoT has left all of Westeros starving for love and peace.   

It's theorized that Planetos is approaching a Long Night 2.0.  So, (theorizing here) at the end of the series I'm thinking of something along the lines of a LN 2.0 being averted somehow, peace being achieved, and a reunion occurring amongst the Starks - symbolically everyone breaking their fast.  Dawn had arrived and everyone can now feast, and not just on food. 

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On April 20, 2016 at 10:00 PM, The Fattest Leech said:

I'm not sure of this qualifies for this thread, but, I mean this is a serious way...

Ossifer Plumm= ossified; to make something unable to change. To become hard like bone.

"And Ossifer Plumm was much too dead, but that did not stop him fathering a child, did it?"

 Have always assumed this with Ossifer.

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Ghost / host / guest

I was reading a book about health care, and the author explored the etymology of the word hospital. She explained that host and guest come from the same Latin root, which confirmed something I suspected about the name of Jon's direwolf:

hospes m ‎(genitive hospitis); third declension

  1. host
  2. guest, visitor
  3. stranger; foreigner

Add in the third meaning, and we have an interesting connection between the seventh of the new gods and the ancient tradition in the north of "guest right". Although the mix of religion and rights might mean we now need a new post to discuss "right" and "rite" as a pun in the books.

If the direwolf is both a guest and a host, maybe he is the host beyond the Wall, but a guest among humans? If he is also a stranger, have we seen him deliver death in the ways that strangers and foreigners such as Ser Ilyn Payne or The Hound or Areo Hotah or Jaqen h'ghar have delivered death? Are there other characters who are both guest and host? I'm thinking Lord Manderly. . .

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Lies / Lys

Mirror / Myr

On 5/31/2016 at 0:26 AM, Isobel Harper said:

Lysa is connected to Lys via similar spelling and Tears of Lys, which she used to kill her husband.  Lysa dies and is replaced with MYRanda.  Anything intriguing about Myr that Myranda might be connected to?  Only thing I can think of is the Myrish torture device that Aerys used on Brandon Stark. :P

Also, could this make Tysha connected to Tyrosh in some way?

 

On 5/31/2016 at 9:36 AM, Seams said:

Lys / Lysa / lies

The location of the sword called Truth is unknown, but it originated in Lys. So we have Truth coming from Lys (lies) but the Truth has been lost. Sounds like a lesson right out of "Literary Themes for Dummies," if ever there was one.

Tears / tears may represent two kinds of destruction of Westeros society. (Doh! And the night is dark and full of Terrors! Add that into the mix!) Which might also tie into your excellent insight about Lysa being replaced by Myranda. Myrish lace is the fabric all the highborn ladies of Westeros desire the most. But is it like the spiderweb woven by Varys the spider, a native of Lys?

I am currently going through AFfC again, and Brienne is working out a lot of old feelings about her past betrothals and about men who were either kind to her or who made her the butt of their jokes and wagers. At one point, she remembers falling for some lies until her septa straightened her out:

When I was a little girl I believed that all men were as noble as my father. Even the men who told her what a pretty girl she was, how tall and bright and clever, how graceful when she danced. It was Septa Roelle who had lifted the scales from her eyes. "They only say those things to win your lord father's favor," the woman had said. "You'll find truth in your looking glass, not on the tongues of men." It was a harsh lesson, one that left her weeping, but it had stood her in good stead at Harrenhal when Ser Hyle and his friends had played their game. A maid has to be mistrustful in this world, or she will not be a maid for long, she was thinking, as the rain began to fall.

So the word "mirror" isn't used (looking glass is the old-fashioned verson) but maybe the implication is enough: lies and mirrors are opposites; Myranda replaces Lysa.

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9 hours ago, Seams said:

 

Lies / Lys

Mirror / Myr

 

I am currently going through AFfC again, and Brienne is working out a lot of old feelings about her past betrothals and about men who were either kind to her or who made her the butt of their jokes and wagers. At one point, she remembers falling for some lies until her septa straightened her out:

When I was a little girl I believed that all men were as noble as my father. Even the men who told her what a pretty girl she was, how tall and bright and clever, how graceful when she danced. It was Septa Roelle who had lifted the scales from her eyes. "They only say those things to win your lord father's favor," the woman had said. "You'll find truth in your looking glass, not on the tongues of men." It was a harsh lesson, one that left her weeping, but it had stood her in good stead at Harrenhal when Ser Hyle and his friends had played their game. A maid has to be mistrustful in this world, or she will not be a maid for long, she was thinking, as the rain began to fall.

So the word "mirror" isn't used (looking glass is the old-fashioned verson) but maybe the implication is enough: lies and mirrors are opposites; Myranda replaces Lysa.

Re: Brienne/septa.  Brienne and the relationship with her septa, when I read that quote isolated, seems to be an inverse of Sansa's with hers.  

Both girls thought that all men were as noble as their fathers.  Brienne's septa taught her to reject this idea, while Sansa's septa (who is often partly blamed for Sansa's naivite) encouraged it.  Brienne takes her septa's "lesson" and learns from it, while Sansa essentially (throughout her arch) has to unlearn her septa's lessons: Not all men are beautiful in some way, i.e. Joffrey.  Men will want her for her title/land, not for her beauty.  Lies can be "kind," ie a lie is okay if "kindly meant." 

Speaking of kindly, the term "kindly" is connected to both Sansa and Arya and their current "apprenticeship" to lie.  Sansa repeatedly rationalizes "kindly meant" lies, while Arya is learning to lie from the "Kindly Man."  Not sure if we can analyze "kindly" in a similar way when it appears in other POVs, but it's a parallel I felt worth noting. 

ETA: Myranda is very blunt.  Yes, I can see how she might be associated with truth.  With regards to mirror and looking glass, there's also Myrish glass.  Is Myrish glass used in mirrors?  Only use for it that I recall is as the glass for greenhouses.  Interestingly enough, LF tells Sansa to IMAGINE the glass (Myrish glass, truth) being in the snow-WF greenhouse, essentially another lie he teaches her. 

Re: Kindly/Myranda/truth: "Kindly lies" and "unkindly truths" are opposites.  But when truths are literally paired with unkindly, there described as "NOT unkindly."  So, technically, lies and truths can be kindly.  GRRM just keeps them in the form of opposites: kindly meant lies, not unkindly truths.

Sansa never calls LF's truths "unkindly," but does call his lies "kindly."  Is she trying to draw a parallel between LF and her father?  Not sure.

Also, with regard to kindly lies and not unkindly truths, what conclusion should we draw about the "teacher" of such lies/truths?  I note Osha to Bran, Mormont to Jon among the teachers of "not unkindly" truths (per asearchoficeandfire.com)  They are teachers that mean well for their students.  

So, does LF still mean well for Sansa, or is he still using Sansa?  That is, is teaching "not unkindly truths" and "kindly lies" just a different side of the same coin, or is their something different we should gather about truth-teachers and lie-teachers?   That is, "not unkindly truth" teachers mean well, but "kindly lie" teachers mean to use/misuse their students.  I'm thinking the latter with regard to LF.

Last but not least, Myranda is a truth-teacher, but due to her blunt nature, her truths usually ARE unkindly meant.  Does she mean to use/misuse Sansa too?

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29 minutes ago, Isobel Harper said:

Re: Brienne/septa.  Brienne and the relationship with her septa, when I read that quote isolated, seems to be an inverse of Sansa's with hers.  

Both girls thought that all men were as noble as their fathers.  Brienne's septa taught her to reject this idea, while Sansa's septa (who is often partly blamed for Sansa's naivite) encouraged it.  Brienne takes her septa's "lesson" and learns from it, while Sansa essentially (throughout her arch) has to unlearn her septa's lessons: Not all men are beautiful in some way, i.e. Joffrey.  Men will want her for her title/land, not for her beauty.  Lies can be "kind," ie a lie is okay if "kindly meant." 

Speaking of kindly, the term "kindly" is connected to both Sansa and Arya and their current "apprenticeship" to lie.  Sansa repeatedly rationalizes "kindly meant" lies, while Arya is learning to lie from the "Kindly Man."  Not sure if we can analyze "kindly" in a similar way when it appears in other POVs, but it's a parallel I felt worth noting. 

Interesting to compare and contrast the way that septas influenced Sansa, Brienne and other women in the books. Cersei also mentions a response from her septa when recalling her reaction to Maggie the Frog's prophecy.

There is definitely a "kindly" connection between Sansa and Arya's arcs, I think. GRRM has built lots of parallels between the Kindly Man and Littlefinger. It would be interesting to look for other uses of the word "kindly" to see if it is used in similar ways in other stories. Good idea.

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