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Puns and Wordplay


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1 hour ago, GloubieBoulga said:

This "pig stuff" reminds me that I had also noted some things about the pigs (and the boar) as kind of fallen/"dethroned" bears, especially in the saga : Robert appears like a bear and like a pig, but same metaphor is about Samwell Tarly, and also for Tyrion. And when the bear is a pig, he is hunted and killed by lions or wolves or others predators (and eaten by crows ?). But I didn't have yet studied these points. 

This is exactly right, I think. I've noticed the relationship between bear and boar (and bore), and even connected it to the name Robb (which, of course, is related to Robert). @sweetsunray pointed out that bears are often described as strong, which gives us another link - to Ser Robert Strong.

Your idea of the "dethroned" bear may be the missing piece, and would explain why the verb change from present tense (bear) to past tense (bore) would transform a bear into a boar.

The references to boars representing regime change go back at least as far as April 2014 in this forum, but that connection to the bear has not been fully examined. I think the wolf deaths are also related. Maybe we will also find out why Dany wears a lion pelt. I think the execution of the direwolf, Lady - ordered by Robert; executed by Ned - is going to tie into the death of Lyanna Stark. The beheaded direwolf arises again at the death of Robb Stark, whose head was supposedly replaced with the head of his direwolf. Later we meet Ser Robert Strong - the name of the dead king, but beheaded. Recall that King Robert's head was fine after his hunting mishap with the boar, but his body was destroyed. If we can pin down the connections and patterns of the deaths of these large mammals, we may be able to pinpoint the meaning of the bear / boar connection. (Can we save Ser Jorah before it's too late!? What will happen to Maege and Lyanna Mormont?)

If there is a cycle of the Winter King and Summer King, we do see a fairly good alternating pattern: Summer king Robert dies - killed by a boar; Winter king Ned dies. (King Robert also wanted the boar meat served at his funeral feast, so he was already anticipating the cycle of killing and replacing the next boar.) Renly dies; Robb dies; Joffrey dies after demanding that Tyrion ride a pig. Jon Snow "dies" after teaming up with a boar skinchanger . . . I realize that you could argue that Ned and Jon are not kings, that Balon Greyjoy doesn't seem to fit the alternating pattern, and that Jeor Mormont is a bear who dies, but he isn't a king. (Although I think his death with Craster represents the death of a bear and a ram together.) And you point out that Sam Tarly as Ser Piggy is part of the pig motif. There is also a lot of pig symbolism associated with Brienne. Which prove the need for fuller examination. I don't know whether we can decode pigs in isolation, or whether they won't make sense unless we look at bears / boars (and wolves, lions - maybe rams? dragons?) at the same time.

Here's another twist: Because "bore" is the past tense of "bear," does GRRM want us to make "whore" the past tense of "weir"? That might explain where whores go . . .

2 hours ago, GloubieBoulga said:

I come with a possible wordplay (perhaps it was already noted and I missed it) : 

- laughter/laugh and slaughter

It appears very clear in a Tyrion's chapter, during the Blackwater battle : 

I never noted it before (I wasn't reading the whole saga in english, as I do yet), but this calls me, especially joined to the "battle-fever" who speaks from a kind of possession (and perhaps, it could be the occasion for a greenseer to "dream" a battle inside a fighting person - perhaps it is a clue that it's really what happens). 

It made me remembering the Laughing tree, but also the mocking bird of LF, and Cersei's dream when she is bit and eated by the iron throne and she sees at the same time Tyrion hard laughing at her (her first chapter in AFFC, if I remember well). And to finish, the Others in the prologue. 

Note also that at the end of his chapter (the one of the "battle fever"), Tyrion is croaking like a crow (not so far from "cracking" like ice, perhaps). 

These are terrific insights! It's also interesting to note that there is a lot of laughter about the jousting dwarfs and the bedding ritual at the purple and red weddings immediately before the slaughter begins.

I expect the laughter / slaughter wordplay might also help us to sort out the references to butchers and butcher kings (which probably ties back into the bear / boar / bore pun).

I wonder whether GRRM also wants us to connect "laugh" and "fall"? They are not spelled alike, but they would sound alike if reversed.

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3 hours ago, Seams said:

There is also a lot of pig symbolism associated with Brienne. Which prove the need for fuller examination. I don't know whether we can decode pigs in isolation, or whether they won't make sense unless we look at bears / boars (and wolves, lions - maybe rams? dragons?) at the same time.

This. Second time that I see about Brienne and pigs/Pyg, and indeed, I studied last year all her quest in AFFC and I conclude that the all stuff was a "nekuia" (the greek/litterar word to say she goes to the other/underwold). So, during her travel, she meets many deads and many gods (all symbolics), when she is looking for dead girls (Sansa and Arya are dead as Starks; and if I think they will reborn, I doubt they will reborn as Stark). The travel conducts her to the queen of the deads, aka LSH. 

But I want to stop at the 2 fights Brienne has : 

- the first is at the Whispers, against 3 Bloody Mummers. When I began to study the stuff, I confused them with Rorge and Biter, and I thought that she was fighting against the Robert's and Ned's form in underworld (Rorge = Robert and Biter = Ned, the "mute wolf", his true friend), but these two are fighted at the Orphan's Inn. 

So I let the 3 Mummers at the Whispers - that didn't stop the rest of the reflexion. I just re-read the chapter few days ago, and :

- Tymeon the Dornish represents Oberyn : that's easy, he wears spears and appears as a snake emerging from a well (=from the underworld).

- Pyg : he gave me difficulties, in fact. But one detail gave me a solution :

 
Quote

 

Brienne saw a sapling sway. From the bushes slid a man, so caked with dirt that he looked as if he had sprouted from the earth. A broken sword was in his hand, but it was his face that gave her pause, the small eyes and wide flat nostrils.
She knew that nose. She knew those eyes. Pyg, his friends had called him.

 

Brienne recognizes the eyes. And 2 characters have very particulars and disturbing eyes Roose and Tywin. I don't recall if Tywin's are small, but that's not very important, I think : the important thing is that Tywin can be identified by his eyes. 
Pyg slid from the bushes : ok, when you are in nature, the toilets are the bushes. And Pyg emerges caked with ... hum hum... mud (little digression : here, I think there is a connection - made unvolontary by Dolorous Edd - between the mud at Craster Keep "Craster's shit" and the assertion "lord Tywin's shit is flecked with gold" because of Casterly Rock). 
The nose could be a reference to Tyrion's lost nose
 
- Shagwell. Well. I think about Joffrey : he has a morningstar with three head : that could be in the same time a kind of hammer with 3 heads (= Robert's hammer + heads that Joffrey obtained), and the 3 "royals" swords he had : Lion's heart, Heart Eater and Widow's Wail. There is a reminiscence of this last one during the dialog between Shagwell and Brienne : 
 
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"Oh, I have, I have, I shan't deny it . . . but I'm amusing, with all my japes and capers. I make men laugh."
"And women weep." (Brienne IV, AFFC)

 

 

I can mention the fact that Shagwell make japes and is amusing when he is cruel, exactly like Joffrey was. He's also obsessed by raping Brienne, as Joffrey was obsessed by Sansa's body and wanted to bed with her at her wedding. 

 

To complete the picture, our infernal trio is looking for a passage out of Westeros by ship : is it to find a real quiet in the death or is it to come back from the underworld ? 

The fact is that Dick Crabbe could be a reminiscence of another dead, more ancient : Rhaegar. : 

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He was scrawny and ill fed, his only armor a dinted halfhelm spotted with rust. In place of a sword, he carried an old, nicked dagger. So long as she was awake, he posed no danger to her.

Not as if it was the great form ^^. Nimble Dick is from Crackclaw Point, where people considering the Baratheon as usurpers and are allways in spirit for the dragons, the "real dragons"; he conducts a maiden (ok, she is special, but Lyanna also had fought at a tourney if she was the Laughing Tree Knight at Harrenhal), and he sings too. Ok, Dick never ends his songs, but I suspect Rhaegar hadn't finish some songs he was composing, especially the song of Ice and Fire ^^. 

I didn't found yet why Brienne was encountering all these deads. They are all part of a "wild hunt", and to come back to the bear/boar stuff, I suspect that an ancient Stark Bear character was killed durring a hunt. Perhaps that looking for "a maiden"/"her sister", Brienne is unvolontary reuniting some elements of the ancient story where a king could have purchased/hunted a maiden too. Like Robert who began by hunting Lyanna and Rhaegar, and never stop hunting after that. 

 

To resume : yes, I think that pigs, bears, boars (and also stags and bulls and aurochs) are too strongly linked to be studied separately. 

 

And now, no very order, but reflexions and some ideas (some are just improvised)

 

3 hours ago, Seams said:

If there is a cycle of the Winter King and Summer King, we do see a fairly good alternating pattern: Summer king Robert dies - killed by a boar; Winter king Ned dies. (King Robert also wanted the boar meat served at his funeral feast, so he was already anticipating the cycle of killing and replacing the next boar.) Renly dies; Robb dies; Joffrey dies after demanding that Tyrion ride a pig. Jon Snow "dies" after teaming up with a boar skinchanger . . . I realize that you could argue that Ned and Jon are not kings, that Balon Greyjoy doesn't seem to fit the alternating pattern, and that Jeor Mormont is a bear who dies, but he isn't a king. (Although I think his death with Craster represents the death of a bear and a ram together.) And you point out that Sam Tarly as Ser Piggy is part of the pig motif. There is also a lot of pig symbolism associated with Brienne. Which prove the need for fuller examination. I don't know whether we can decode pigs in isolation, or whether they won't make sense unless we look at bears / boars (and wolves, lions - maybe rams? dragons?) at the same time.

I have an hypothesis about the wolves/lions/others predators : after the death of the "bear character", the "wolf character" (ancestor of the Stark) received the crown. And now, he must abandon it or/and die to permit the rebirth of the bear character as a "king". 

In the story, rams/goats/lambs could have been the "bastard", the character who was accused from the death of the "king", but really not responsible (for example, Craster is a criminal, but he didn't kill Jeor Mormont). 

Perhaps, the "ram character" was also hunting/purchasing the maiden, and perhaps with more success. 

That also could explain why Jaime (the Kingslayer) and Brienne (the maiden of the Kingslayer) are arriving for a trial with LSH "queen of the underworld" and mother of a dead king as judge. 

 

 

3 hours ago, Seams said:

I expect the laughter / slaughter wordplay might also help us to sort out the references to butchers and butcher kings (which probably ties back into the bear / boar / bore pun).

I wonder whether GRRM also wants us to connect "laugh" and "fall"? They are not spelled alike, but they would sound alike if reversed.

The more I think I think to this, the more I make the link with the greenseers. 

When I quoted Tyrion's chapter, dance, laugh and slaught are together, and it could represent the fact to be "inhabited" by a skinchanger/a greenseer, probably not like Hodor is, but like the direwolves are when their master/partneir don't take the controll but are just inside : both spirits are directly in contact and they can mix, but one isn't really conscient of that because he keeps the controll. To go further, I think that Tyrion, Brienne and Sandor Clegane (and Aeron Greyjoy and Patchface) have known such experience when they are dead or very near dead, and that saved them. 

To note, also : Stannis never laughs, and Robert is a very huge laughter. And Theon is a smiler and punished by physically loosing his smile. 

In the pig-bear-ram-lion-wolf-dragon 's story, I don't spoke about the dragons nor the birds. 

Well, the birds are linked to the greenseers, and I think the "original bird" is the real kingslayer. And dragons are here to break the lies of the bird(s).

Perhaps the "greenseer's laugh" could reproduct a first laugh when he slaughtered the "original" king.  

 

PS : you spoke of @sweetsunray and that's precisely her thread about the Bear and the fair Maiden that gave me last summer the pieces that missed in my reflexions (I was about an ancient kinslayer and a kingslayer, but unable to put the pieces together to obtain something totally coherent). All thanks to her ! (and I discovered Westeros.org at the same time ^^)

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@GloubieBoulga, weirwoods are also slaughter trees for what it's worth. I'd have to agree those words are meant to play off one another. There's also the link between laughing and slaying implied by the Crescent moon. It can either be a sickle, such as Bran's last ADWD chapter, or it can be a smile like a Cheshire cat moon. Martin is working that angle quite a bit.  

ETA: you might consider the scene from AFFC where Jaime and The silent knight Ilyn Payne dance beneath the horned moon, with Payne doing his choking laughter thing.  

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5 hours ago, GloubieBoulga said:

- Pyg : he gave me difficulties, in fact. But one detail gave me a solution :

the small eyes and flat nose?

See Craster (the Ram), but also bears: bears have small eyes in comparison to their massive heads and flat noses as well...That's why we have Craster posing as a bear (living in den in the woods), but actually being a ram (with a harem of sheep and children as lambs).

So, we have rams and goats posing as bear lords or lords over bears. Then we have pigs and boars who might actually be bullied bears. We have stags sacrificed like bears. And we also have whales, who are bears who hunt the hunter.

Edited by sweetsunray
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11 hours ago, sweetsunray said:

the small eyes and flat nose?

See Craster (the Ram), but also bears: bears have small eyes in comparison to their massive heads and flat noses as well...That's why we have Craster posing as a bear (living in den in the woods), but actually being a ram (with a harem of sheep and children as lambs).

 

Yes, eyes and nose gave me a solution, and also the parallelism between Tywin and Craster ^^

But I wonder if we can put exactly on the same line stags, whales, auroch, bulls and pigs and boars. I suspect (but without being certain) that stags or aurochs are regionals variations of the "bear character" as a king (= bear could be a "king" the North, and the stag in the south, for example), when bulls, pigs and boars are the false/fallen/dethroned form for them. But sometimes, we see directly a bear character loosing his throne. 

Quote

So, we have rams and goats posing as bear lords or lords over bears. Then we have pigs and boars who might actually be bullied bears. We have stags sacrificed like bears. And we also have whales, who are bears who hunt the hunter.

And those rams are truly fool bastards ! 

 

17 hours ago, LmL said:

 

@GloubieBoulga, weirwoods are also slaughter trees for what it's worth. I'd have to agree those words are meant to play off one another. There's also the link between laughing and slaying implied by the Crescent moon. It can either be a sickle, such as Bran's last ADWD chapter, or it can be a smile like a Cheshire cat moon. Martin is working that angle quite a bit.  

ETA: you might consider the scene from AFFC where Jaime and The silent knight Ilyn Payne dance beneath the horned moon, with Payne doing his choking laughter thing

 

Ho ! I love the cheshire Cat stuff ! I didn't thought at all about it, but now that's sure, I will consider very attentively the crescent laughing moon. And indeed, we see this kind of moon during the wedding between Ramsay and fArya, and the weirwood is laughing (and perhaps also ready to eat, making the connection with the meat who was originally a sacrified animal for a feast)

I'm interrogative about the "horned moon" (I can't recall if this expression exists in my native language)

Finally, the wordplay between slaughter and laughter tells us also about feasts of deads/(after) battles

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4 hours ago, GloubieBoulga said:

But I wonder if we can put exactly on the same line stags, whales, auroch, bulls and pigs and boars. I suspect (but without being certain) that stags or aurochs are regionals variations of the "bear character" as a king (= bear could be a "king" the North, and the stag in the south, for example), when bulls, pigs and boars are the false/fallen/dethroned form for them. But sometimes, we see directly a bear character loosing his throne. 

Well, take Samwell. He is referred to as a pig, but he's actually a hidden bear character who takes the fur of Jeor (the Old Bear) is "sacrificed" and elopes with a maiden (young girl sense, not virgin sense) who's carrying his cloak (marriage cloaking symbolism), after he was hunted from the Fist to Craster's. But then in his aFfC arc he's referred to as a whale instead. This coincides with his gradual betterment of learning to shoot bow and arrow (the hunting weapon bears despise the most). Pigs and boars have a direct linguistic association with bears, since a male bear can be referred to as a "boar", and a female bear can be called a "sow". The same association for bull and cow can be applied to dragons, as male dinosaurs and komodo dragons are called bulls and the femals cows.

Jaime is a "lion", but he's hunted like a bear, losing his hand (several alluded background bear figures lose a foot or hand or have a clubfoot). He "steals" a maiden from Harrenhal, the moment an actual bear dies.

Qhorin is described much in a way you can associate him with a "horse" (his braided hair and thin long face). And yet he dies, sacrificing himself, after Jon stole Ygritte (according to her), whle kept under bowshot after they emerged from a "cave". At the very least we have bear-hunt motif and environmental stuff going on. And Val wears bearskins, first brown, then white, with the raven calling Jon a "thief".

The KL bull Gendry becomes the captured hidden bear smith in the woods. He still has to steal his maiden. Bull is also the alternative name for a male deer, aka a stag.

I agree the stag can be the equivalent of the sacrificial bear, as this certainly was the sacrificial animal in regions where the bear hunt was not prevalent, but similar euphemism for naming the animal and hunting rituals and celebrations exist. Deer after all just stems from PIE meaning "animal". This might explain Qhorin who's description fits a horse, a stallion can also be called a "stag" (in Scotland) for a young stallion, or might also be used to indicate an adult male animal that was castrated (Qhorin is NW and per his vows barred fro having a wife).

And we forgot the "dog" earlier on too. Jaime directly compares the HH bear to Gregor Clegane with a pelt, hence Gregor Clegane is a bear without a pelt. He's a giant of a man, and later becomes Robert Strong. One of the euphemisms for a bear is "god's dog".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_animal_names

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/stag

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7 hours ago, GloubieBoulga said:

Yes, eyes and nose gave me a solution, and also the parallelism between Tywin and Craster ^^

But I wonder if we can put exactly on the same line stags, whales, auroch, bulls and pigs and boars. I suspect (but without being certain) that stags or aurochs are regionals variations of the "bear character" as a king (= bear could be a "king" the North, and the stag in the south, for example), when bulls, pigs and boars are the false/fallen/dethroned form for them. But sometimes, we see directly a bear character loosing his throne. 

And those rams are truly fool bastards ! 

 

Ho ! I love the cheshire Cat stuff ! I didn't thought at all about it, but now that's sure, I will consider very attentively the crescent laughing moon. And indeed, we see this kind of moon during the wedding between Ramsay and fArya, and the weirwood is laughing (and perhaps also ready to eat, making the connection with the meat who was originally a sacrified animal for a feast)

I'm interrogative about the "horned moon" (I can't recall if this expression exists in my native language)

Finally, the wordplay between slaughter and laughter tells us also about feasts of deads/(after) battles

I noticed in Theon's Winterfell nightmare of the two direwolf children chasing him, all the trees had faces, and all the faces were laughing. It seems like a pretty strong theme. It might be an extension of the "sex and swordplay" double entendres about bloody swords and "giving a maiden the sword when her moon blood is on her" , the childbed being a woman's battlefield and the like. 

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1 minute ago, LmL said:

I noticed in Theon's Winterfell nightmare of the two direwolf children chasing him, all the trees had faces, and all the faces were laughing. It seems like a pretty strong theme. It might be an extension of the "sex and swordplay" double entendres about bloody swords and "giving a maiden the sword when her moon blood is on her" , the childbed being a woman's battlefield and the like. 

Yeah, making someone laugh and tickling someone has that double meaning.

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Here's another laughter/slaughter example, trading laughter for slaughter:

 The only women Chett had ever known were the whores he'd bought in Mole's Town. When he'd been younger, the village girls took one look at his face, with its boils and its wen, and turned away sickened. The worst was that slattern Bessa. She'd spread her legs for every boy in Hag's Mire so he'd figured why not him too? He even spent a morning picking wildflowers when he heard she liked them, but she'd just laughed in his face and told him she'd crawl in a bed with his father's leeches before she'd crawl in one with him. She stopped laughing when he put his knife in her. That was sweet, the look on her face, so he pulled the knife out and put it in her again. When they caught him down near Sevenstreams, old Lord Walder Frey hadn't even bothered to come himself to do the judging. He'd sent one of his bastards, that Walder Rivers, and the next thing Chett had known he was walking to the Wall with that foul-smelling black devil Yoren. To pay for his one sweet moment, they took his whole life.  ACoK, Prologue 

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For the pig imagery how about the dead sea cow that Tyrion finds lurking in the bowels of Casterly Rock?

I also think the decaying manatee is symbolically the exact opposite of Patchface, and that makes me wonder if a meeting between the two (Tyrion and Patchface... snicker) is in the works.

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Alright so it has been a long time. 

Darklyn

The part 'Lyn' is usually spelled Lynn and is etymologically defined as stream or pool from the Scottish Gaelic word 'linne'. So the Darklyns should be Dark Pool. Considering that they produced SEVEN kingsguards and technically Dontos is related to them and he played Florian to Sansa's Jonquil. 

Edited by Pain killer Jane
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On 2/14/2017 at 5:09 PM, Pain killer Jane said:

Alright so it has been a long time. 

Darklyn

The part 'Lyn' is usually spelled Lynn and is etymologically defined as stream or pool from the Scottish Gaelic word 'linne'. So the Darklyns should be Dark Pool. Considering that they produced SEVEN kingsguards and technically Dontos is related to them and he played Florian to Sansa's Jonquil. 

This is good. I hope we will see some vindication for Ser Dontos, whose life and story seemed to embody a lot of symbols. I wonder whether his "dark pool" was the barrel of wine in which Joffrey was going to drown him?

Someone in my family has the middle name Linne, so I am also happy to know a little bit more about its origin and meaning.

I had a little "Aha!" moment with a character's name earlier this week: Myrcella = Myr(ish) lace?

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2 hours ago, Seams said:

I wonder whether his "dark pool" was the barrel of wine in which Joffrey was going to drown him?

You know I forgot about that threat. I said this the other day on the poetry thread about the wine. 

On 1/31/2017 at 1:11 PM, Pain killer Jane said:
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Edd stood over the kettle swishing the eggs about with a spoon. "I envy those eggs," he said. "I could do with a bit of boiling about now. If the kettle were larger, I might jump in. Though I would sooner it were wine than water. There are worse ways to die than warm and drunk. I knew a brother drowned himself in wine once. It was a poor vintage, though, and his corpse did not improve it."

"You drank the wine?"

"It's an awful thing to find a brother dead. You'd have need of a drink as well, Lord Snow." Edd stirred the kettle and added a pinch more nutmeg.

- Jon  V, aCoK

And here is a bit of history. George Plantagenet(a white rose brother), duke of Clarence, brother of Edward the IV of England after being convicted of treason was drowned in a butt (barrel) of Malmsey wine. A lot of people have mentioned that the Baratheon Brothers seem like the York brothers with a twist. So if Robert is Edward IV and Stannis is Richard III then Renly is George and @LmL, the drowning in wine and then drinking blood fits in with the sacrifice of a horned lord. 

And I said this later on of the parallel between Gared's description of the his NW brother boiling in wine and its similarity to Jon's dream of Ygritte boiling in the pitch black pool that is in front of the heart tree in Winterfell. (Through a mirror darkly)

On 2/2/2017 at 11:29 AM, Pain killer Jane said:

This also reminds me of the dream Jon had of Ygritte in aSoS

Quote

"Drink this." Grenn held a cup to his lips. Jon drank. His head was full of wolves and eagles, the sound of his brothers' laughter. The faces above him began to blur and fade. They can't be dead. Theon would never do that. And Winterfell . . . grey granite, oak and iron, crows wheeling around the towers, steam rising off the hot pools in the godswood, the stone kings sitting on their thrones . . . how could Winterfell be gone?

When the dreams took him, he found himself back home once more, splashing in the hot pools beneath a huge white weirwood that had his father's face. Ygritte was with him, laughing at him, shedding her skins till she was naked as her name day, trying to kiss him, but he couldn't, not with his father watching. He was the blood of Winterfell, a man of the Night's Watch. I will not father a bastard, he told her. I will not. I will not. "You know nothing, Jon Snow," she whispered, her skin dissolving in the hot water, the flesh beneath sloughing off her bones until only skull and skeleton remained, and the pool bubbled thick and red.

-Jon VI, aSoS

And with this image of Ygritte and the cannibalism aspect of the allusion, brings to mind the Maidenpool (Jonquil and Florian/Hugor of the Hill killing the Swann Maidens in sacrifice), Rose of Red Lake (and since Ygritte sounds like Egret, the silver heron/crane), Ser Malegorn of Redpool (who is now betrothed to a woman whose father is the head of House Redbeard and has Kingsblood).

I forgot about Dontos competely when I was listing connections to the allusion. I didn't even think of Sansa since she thought of herself as Jonquil. 

ETA: And one thing too Aeron Dmaphair calls the Drowned God, "he who drowned for us". And we have that lovely image that Brienne describes of Jaime saying "had come walking through that mist naked as his name day, looking half a corpse and half a god." And then later she dreams of Jaime in place of Renly as the dying king. 

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4 hours ago, Seams said:

Someone in my family has the middle name Linne, so I am also happy to know a little bit more about its origin and meaning.

I had a little "Aha!" moment with a character's name earlier this week: Myrcella = Myr(ish) lace?

The Lyn names could be like the Wyl/Wyn with the others Lys and the names with Myr names as well. 

Myrcella than would be Serala the Lace Serpent (Taena of Myr doing a good impression of the Lace Serpent with Myrcella's mother). We also have Varamyr, Myriah, Myranda Royce. Myr is Old Norse for bog or mire and is the middle low German word for mure which means wall. A couple of things we find in the North, a swamp known as The Neck, lizard-LIONs and the Wall. 

eta: Myrcella is an interesting way to spell the Marcella the feminine form of Marcellus, the family name derived from Marcus and ultimately derived from Mars, the Roman God of War. Which I think is funny because since Ares is his Greek name and in English, Ares is pronounced the same as Aries, in the Zodiac, the ram. And Myrcella is a lamb (on the verge of being sacrificed) and is purely a Lion. A lamb in lion's clothing?

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19 minutes ago, Pain killer Jane said:

The Lyn names could be like the Wyl/Wyn with the others Lys and the names with Myr names as well. 

Myrcella than would be Serala the Lace Serpent (Taena of Myr doing a good impression of the Lace Serpent with Myrcella's mother). We also have Varamyr, Myriah, Myranda Royce. Myr is Old Norse for bog or mire and is the middle low German word for mure which means wall. A couple of things we find in the North, a swamp known as The Neck, lizard-LIONs and the Wall. 

eta: Myrcella is an interesting way to spell the Marcella the feminine form of Marcellus, the family name derived from Marcus and ultimately derived from Mars, the Roman God of War. Which I think is funny because since Ares is his Greek name and in English, Ares is pronounced the same as Aries, in the Zodiac, the ram. And Myrcella is a lamb (on the verge of being sacrificed) and is purely a Lion. A lamb in lion's clothing?

I'm not sure GRRM is strictly following all the Old English and German roots with the names he creates, although those sources could be one layer of meaning. I thought maybe he was making up his own word associations - you may have seen the posts speculating that "Lys," as in "Tears of Lys" and the name of Lysa Arryn might be a pun on "lies." I thought "Myr" might be a pun on "mirror." But I haven't done a systematic analysis.

I also wondered whether "Tyrosh" might be an anagram of "shorty," and somehow alludes to Tyrion.

I like the idea of Myrcella as the lamb in lion's clothing. Jon was a wolf in sheep's clothing when he was undercover with the wildlings.

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1 hour ago, Seams said:

you may have seen the posts speculating that "Lys," as in "Tears of Lys" and the name of Lysa Arryn might be a pun on "lies." I thought "Myr" might be a pun on "mirror."

No I didn't see that post. I did speculate a while back that Lys is the form of Lyssa which either means wolf-like or madness. As Alyssum is the name of a flower used to cure madness which the name means not mad as in crazy. And Lyc is the root for Lykos and Lycaon, the Greek mythical king that was turned into a wolf because he served his own son's roasted flesh to Zeus. 

I always figured Lysa was Liza the short form of Elizabeth. And Lysa is crazy. 

Well in Spanish 'Mira' (Meera) is the verb 'to see' and is the transliteration of mirror in Japanese. 

1 hour ago, Seams said:

I'm not sure GRRM is strictly following all the Old English and German roots with the names he creates, although those sources could be one layer of meaning.

GRRM is holding up a mirror at us through the social commentary aspects of the series and I tend to think that is not limited to overall themes because words-their etymologies and uses-are products of the culture they are born in. We can see that in the care GRRM has taken in creating the words of the houses, the euphemisms alluding to a whole manner of things, and the imagery (scenes, landscape, sigils, description of characters) he presents to us. So while in-universe they have specific connotations and meanings, we arrived at those connotations and meanings through our real life connotations and meanings which are products of our cultures. I take the stance that GRRM is usually using our own words against us to present the world he has created. After all 'words are swords'.

Edited by Pain killer Jane
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30 minutes ago, Pain killer Jane said:

No I didn't see that post. I did speculate a while back that Lys is the form of Lyssa which either means wolf-like or madness. As Alyssum is the name of a flower used to cure madness which the name means not mad as in crazy. And Lyc is the root for Lykos and Lycaon, the Greek mythical king that was turned into a wolf because he served his own son's roasted flesh to Zeus. 

I always figured Lysa was Liza the short form of Elizabeth. And Lysa is crazy. 

Well in Spanish 'Mira' (Meera) is the verb 'to see' and is the transliteration of mirror in Japanese. 

GRRM is holding up a mirror at us through the social commentary aspects of the series and I tend to think that is not limited to overall themes because words-their etymologies and uses-are products of the culture they are born in. We can see that in the care GRRM has taken in creating the words of the houses, the euphemisms alluding to a whole manner of things, and the imagery (scenes, landscape, sigils, description of characters) he presents to us. So while in-universe they have specific connotations and meanings, we arrived at those connotations and meanings through our real life connotations and meanings which are products of our cultures. I take the stance that GRRM is usually our own words against us to present the world he has created. After all 'words are swords'.

All good points. I particularly like Meera as a form of "to see."

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32 minutes ago, Seams said:

All good points. I particularly like Meera as a form of "to see."

I know, I couldn't resist that since one of the potential places the Starks got greenseer blood was from the Marsh Kings in the Neck. And Meera's brother Jojen is a greendreamer but she is strictly a hunter. Which is something I have been thinking about in terms of the symbolism. A hunter being a green man, that would fit with Robert hunting down the white heart, Harlon the hunter and his twin Herndon of the Horn being sons of Garth- a green man, 'the hunting greens' cloths that we keep seeing, the wild hunt as an aspect of the green man theme. Honestly to me, Meera is the embodiment and confirmation that greenseeing is passed down maternally and is not benign magic but is a weapon. In our real world, her frog-spear trident, was originally a double headed ax named a Labrys and was strictly a symbol of goddess. This interpretation to me is valid since Areo Hotah calls his ax 'his ash and iron wife', we have the craving or whatever it is that depicts a naked woman holding an ax and a suckling baby that is above the gates the home of the Mormonts, a clan of bear warrior women, and then Asha and her ax. 

eta: To me this whole thing is reminiscent of the story of the Maiden giving Galladon of Morne, a sword, naming it the Just Maid. 
 

eta: and it alludes to Artemis (the huntress moon goddess) giving her heart to Orion, the hunter or Selene and Endymion. 

Edited by Pain killer Jane
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