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Just / Stooge

A current discussion of the Blackwood / Bracken feud included a mention of Benedict I Justman, a bastard descendant of both Houses who became King of the Trident and briefly maintained peace between the rival families. I agreed that Justman might be a very helpful clue in sorting out the Blackwood / Bracken feud, but also in finding the lost "Just" portion of the sword "Ice." 

In exploring the wiki details about the Brackens, I was reminded that three Bracken men-at-arms are instrumental in responding to Catelyn's command that her father's bannermen help her to arrest Tyrion at the inn at the crossroads. Those bannermen are clearly intended to allude to the Three Stooges, a literary hint that enjoyed but never fully understood. 

Until I just now realized that "stooge" is probably wordplay on "just" - except scrambled and misspelled. Instead of a move toward justice, Catelyn taking Tyrion prisoner is a stooge move. 

Kurleket and Mohor are killed in the first skirmish with the mountain clans; Lharys dies in the second clash. We know that the mountain clans will eventually ally with Tyrion. Does that mean that Tyrion has justice on his side? Or that his cause is just?

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14 hours ago, Seams said:

Does that mean that Tyrion has had justice on his side? Or that his cause is just?

He was innocent in that context after all, all LF's doing. Subsequent actions are questionable and depends on the reader's perspective of how far they're willing to relax their modern moral outlook (with due consideration for the medieval setting ofc).

 

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  • 1 month later...

The pasty-faced youth, the Alchemist wearing Pate the pig boy's face:

“There’s an empty sleeping cell under mine in the west tower, with steps that lead right up to Walgrave’s chambers,” said the pasty-faced youth.

Pasty. I never noticed  that before. A pasty is baked pastry filled with meat or vegetables. A "Hot Pie" reference I bet.  So the Alchemist is associated with hot pies. And the Alchemists' Guild are pyromancers who make wildfire. And presumably "pyres." Lol. Damn it. Of course. Bakers bake their pies in hot ovens powered by fire. The faceless men did turn Old Valyria into a "Hot Pie." 

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50 minutes ago, Evolett said:

The pasty-faced youth, the Alchemist wearing Pate the pig boy's face:

“There’s an empty sleeping cell under mine in the west tower, with steps that lead right up to Walgrave’s chambers,” said the pasty-faced youth.

Pasty. I never noticed  that before. A pasty is baked pastry filled with meat or vegetables. A "Hot Pie" reference I bet.  So the Alchemist is associated with hot pies. And the Alchemists' Guild are pyromancers who make wildfire. And presumably "pyres." Lol. Damn it. Of course. Bakers bake their pies in hot ovens powered by fire. The faceless men did turn Old Valyria into a "Hot Pie." 

Could it also be linked to patsy? Pate as the alchemist's patsy? Apologies if someone has mentioned this before.

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38 minutes ago, Craving Peaches said:

Could it also be linked to patsy? Pate as the alchemist's patsy?

Sure, since Pate the pig boy was deceived by the Alchemist. The fictional Pate the pig boy was a good-hearted, empty-headed fool who nevertheless always ended up the hero. Sam, also dubbed "Lady Piggy" shares the pig association with Pate. He's also much smarter than Pate and I suspect "replaces" Pate. Pate the empty-headed pig boy replaced by Sam the hero so to speak. And I think Sam won't be fooled by Pate the Alchemist that easily. 

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  • 4 weeks later...

In this case, I bet "pasty-faced" is GRRM's way of telling us that a faceless man has taken over Pate's identity: he has "pasted" Pate's face onto his own, in the manner of the Faceless Men. 

Usually, a person with a "pasty" skin tone is lacking in color. That is probably also true of Pate's face, since he died in the back alley after selling the key to the Alchemist. 

But we should also keep in mind that Bran ate some weirwood paste and felt transformed by it. We know that trees can have important magical faces in Westeros. Perhaps a "pasty" face is an allusion to a face on a weirwood tree.

There are only 11 references to "pasty" people in the books. The Boltons, Robert Arryn (who is like Bran and Bloodraven in various ways) and Egg of the Dunk & Egg stories are among the 11 references. Pate is described as "pasty-faced" only after Sam meets him, not in the prologue. The Robert Arryn descriptor might mean that albino Bloodraven is a variation on "pasty" as well. Lofty company. 

Edited by Seams
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I love this interpretation:

11 hours ago, Seams said:

In this case, I bet "pasty-faced" is GRRM's way of telling us that a faceless man has taken over Pate's identity: he has "pasted" Pate's face onto his own, in the manner of the Faceless Men.

And this observation adds weight to something I've been working on regarding the Boltons as well as solving an evidence issue I had with Sweetrobin. It has to do with characters who have two or more identities. Many thanks :)

11 hours ago, Seams said:

here are only 11 references to "pasty" people in the books. The Boltons, Robert Arryn (who is like Bran and Bloodraven in various ways) and Egg of the Dunk & Egg stories are among the 11 references. Pate is described as "pasty-faced" only after Sam meets him, not in the prologue. The Robert Arryn descriptor might mean that albino Bloodraven is a variation on "pasty" as well. Lofty company.

Egg hadn't crossed my mind in connection with what I've been looking at but of course he is also "two-faced," ie. has two identities. It's interesting he's named Egg while Robert Arryn makes a big scene because he wants eggs instead of porridge. One aspect of Ramsay also links up to the Eyrie in general: the falchion knife Ramsay carries. The words Falcon and falchion originate from the Latin word "falx" meaning curved blade or sickle-shaped. The falcon was named for its curved beak. The Arryn's moon and falcon are both "sickles." Ramsay is the only one owning a falchion knife, iirc so I think its a significant link. Pasty-faced is the connection between the two.
So far we have not seen Sweetrobin changing identity like Ramsay has, but perhaps having two names counts. He's being mothered by Sansa who is now Alayne. 

The Frey Pies may be another clue to the patsy / hot pie/pyre alternative with loose ties to Valyria: Rhaegar of the Targaryen name is baked in the pie. I just noticed that his father and brother have Targ names as well - Aenys and Aegon. 

And then there's Arya's weasel soup.  This is before she embarks on her faceless training but at this point she's already gone through various identities. Her boiling hot soup ushers in Roose Bolton who is also part of my two-faced investigation.  

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10 hours ago, Evolett said:

So far we have not seen Sweetrobin changing identity

His real name is Robert, though, and he is called Sweetrobin. Also, he seems to like both Alayne and 'Randa Royce - opposites, in some ways. He may also represent "alternate Bran" - both like the Flying Knight (Bran has "flown" in his coma after his fall) and there are other details that link them. 

I'm currently listening to the audiobook of AGoT and this line struck me:

Quote

He had a grim cast to his grey eyes this day, and he seemed not at all the man who would sit before the fire in the evening and talk softly of the age of heroes and the children of the forest. He had taken off Father's face, Bran thought, and donned the face of Lord Stark of Winterfell.

(AGoT, Bran I)

You probably already have that in your two-faced collection. It's Ned just before the execution of Gared. 

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Feet / Pies

Serendipity. Today, I had to stand in line to make a return at a big box store. A big computer screen was in my line of sight and it had a post-Covid message on the screen in English and Spanish: 6 feet / 6 Pies, with a diagram showing two people standing six feet apart. 

GRRM's symbolic use of feet is one of the big puzzles that continues to elude me. But if there is a link between feet and pies, this could help us to crack his code. 

And could also help us to reconstruct Lord Manderly's recipe for Frey Pie. 

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On 9/23/2022 at 9:29 PM, Evolett said:

Sure, since Pate the pig boy was deceived by the Alchemist. The fictional Pate the pig boy was a good-hearted, empty-headed fool who nevertheless always ended up the hero. Sam, also dubbed "Lady Piggy" shares the pig association with Pate. He's also much smarter than Pate and I suspect "replaces" Pate. Pate the empty-headed pig boy replaced by Sam the hero so to speak. And I think Sam won't be fooled by Pate the Alchemist that easily. 

Pate and pigs and piggies have a few references in his prologue chapter.

Quote

He even loved her toes. One night she'd let him rub her feet and play with them, and he'd made up a funny tale for every toe to keep her giggling.

Toes = piggies.

Quote

Ebrose might not think him worthy of the silver, but Pate knew how to set a bone and leech a fever. The smallfolk would be grateful for his help. If he could learn to cut hair and shave beards, he might even be a barber.

Reference to the nursery rhyme ‘Barber barber, shave a pig’.

 

 

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10 hours ago, Sandy Clegg said:

Pate and pigs and piggies have a few references in his prologue chapter.

Quote

He even loved her toes. One night she'd let him rub her feet and play with them, and he'd made up a funny tale for every toe to keep her giggling.

Toes = piggies.

Spoiler

Lol, this reminds me so strongly of the Larys - Alicent foot scene in HotD. And we have the clubfoot present in both scenes as well. Maybe there's more to both foot scenes than we think :D

 

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4 hours ago, Evolett said:
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Lol, this reminds me so strongly of the Larys - Alicent foot scene in HotD. And we have the clubfoot present in both scenes as well. Maybe there's more to both foot scenes than we think :D

 

Oh, feet and boots are very symbolic in ASOIAF as metaphors for skin-changing and 'slipping out of one's skin', so I wouldn't be surprised if that had been a suggestion from GRRM. In the ADWD prologue he makes the analogy clearer than it was in previous books:

 

Quote

As a boot was shaped to accept a foot, a dog was shaped to accept a collar, even a collar no human eye could see.

- ADWD, Prologue

So, feet slipping into shoes/boots are analogous to collars being slipped onto dogs. A form of taking control, or: skin-changing. So it's no surprise we see a plethora of feet/boot symbolism throughout the books, especially in characters like Bran, Jon and Arya who have something of this power.

We first get a clue when Bran sees Gared beheaded:

Quote

The head bounced off a thick root and rolled. It came up near Greyjoy's feet. Theon was a lean, dark youth of nineteen who found everything amusing. He laughed, put his boot on the head, and kicked it away.

- AGOT, Bran I

So we are drawn to the connection between feet and heads, with the skinchanger entering the mind or 'head' of another. Boots and minds can both be metaphorically 'worn'.

Quote

He liked how it felt too, pulling himself up a wall stone by stone, fingers and toes digging hard into the small crevices between. He always took off his boots and went barefoot when he climbed; it made him feel as if he had four hands instead of two.

- AGOT, Bran II

Here we get some foreshadowing of Bran's skinchanging powers. Going barefoot = Bran slipping out of his own skin. His mind/soul 'climbs' or flies above the world, just as Varaymyr's does. 

A Jon chapter also gives us a close connection between skin changing - or 'skinning' - and slipping off one's boots:

Quote

As he knelt to skin the rabbit, Sam pulled off his boots. "I think there's moss growing between my toes," he declared mournfully, wriggling the toes in question.

- ACOK, Jon III

Entering another's skin means you have to leave your old boots, or skin, behind. We even get moss growing between his toes - as Bran in the weirwood tree might eventually grow moss over time. There are lots of other examples of this kind of stuff, I might have to make a separate post as it goes beyond puns and wordplay I think.

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16 hours ago, Seams said:

 

GRRM's symbolic use of feet is one of the big puzzles that continues to elude me. But if there is a link between feet and pies, this could help us to crack his code. 

 

See my above post, but meat pies are essentially 'meat' forced inside a 'skin' (the pastry) that is not their own. So a perfect analogy for a being that has been skin-changed or warged.

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48 minutes ago, Sandy Clegg said:

See my above post, but meat pies are essentially 'meat' forced inside a 'skin' (the pastry) that is not their own. So a perfect analogy for a being that has been skin-changed or warged.

Maybe. There are significant pies with live birds inside - maybe the metaphor is that cutting off the "boot" (crust) allows them to fly. This would be consistent with Bran taking off his boots before climbing (flying).

Varys is described as someone who seems to fly or glide, in spite of his bulk. I always assumed it was because he had secret Targ heritage and that he moved like a dragon. He is good at disguises, so maybe that fits the notion of a skinchanger. But Littlefinger tells Ned and Cat that Varys wouldn't like it if the pie were open and the birds began to sing - we assume this is an allusion to the "little birds" who are spies for the Master of Whisperers. How would Varys and these spies fit into the pie-as-skinchanger interpretation? (Maybe just through pies / spies wordplay. I do remember thinking that Margaery's remark that Widow's Wail is not made for slicing pies might be wordplay around Lysene spies, referring to Varys.)

I think I'd also want to look very closely at Hot Pie and at various references to tarts before settling on an interpretation for pies. 

For a long time, I have suspected that GRRM created a set of symbols linking oranges and feet - part of a larger set of symbols involving body parts and fruits. But I've recently noted that there are some references to apples and feet. And orange as a color seems to be linked to fire and to Aegon Targaryen characters. So my earlier perception of oranges and feet may have been too narrow. Certainly oranges don't seem like a match for pies, but apples would be a good match.

As for toes, I think they may be linked to grapes - which are also linked to eyes. This may be part of GRRM's game of linking Dorne and the North - the North is like a giant head above "The Neck" in Westeros, but wordplay on "north" and "thorn" links it to "Dorne," which is the German word for thorn. In turn, this may link both locations to the Throne and the game of thrones. Here's why I think toes and grapes are linked (in Dorne, at least):

Quote

The prince turned his chair laboriously to face her. Though he was but two-and-fifty, Doran Martell seemed much older. His body was soft and shapeless beneath his linen robes, and his legs were hard to look upon. The gout had swollen and reddened his joints grotesquely; his left knee was an apple, his right a melon, and his toes had turned to dark red grapes, so ripe it seemed as though a touch would burst them.

AFfC, The Captain of Guards

 

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3 hours ago, Sandy Clegg said:

Oh, feet and boots are very symbolic in ASOIAF as metaphors for skin-changing and 'slipping out of one's skin', so I wouldn't be surprised if that had been a suggestion from GRRM. In the ADWD prologue he makes the analogy clearer than it was in previous books:

 

Quote

As a boot was shaped to accept a foot, a dog was shaped to accept a collar, even a collar no human eye could see.

- ADWD, Prologue

So, feet slipping into shoes/boots are analogous to collars being slipped onto dogs. A form of taking control, or: skin-changing. So it's no surprise we see a plethora of feet/boot symbolism throughout the books, especially in characters like Bran, Jon and Arya who have something of this power.

Yes indeed. We discussed feet being a reference to skinchanging and boots representing the "receptacle" based on that quote earlier in either this thread or another. I like your take on some of the other citations as well.  I'm thinking a clubfoot might have difficulty skinchanging or, alternatively be large enough to fit a "boot" that is otherwise to "large," in other words be just right for penetrating someone who under normal circumstances would be really hard to skinchange - the clubfoot allows the boot to fit. 
As @seams points out, there are these foot and fruit interactions (hmm, foot, fruit?) with oranges and apples paired with feet. 

2 hours ago, Seams said:

How would Varys and these spies fit into the pie-as-skinchanger interpretation?

Recall Hot Pie bakes wolf-shaped bread or pie for Arya. I took this as an indication that the wolf-blood is associated with fire magic, especially since those who have it are particularly rash and temperamental. 

Littlefinger telling Ned and Cat that Varys wouldn't like the pie to open for the birds to sing could also be referencing Sansa. She's a "little bird" that "sang" when she revealed Ned's plans for leaving KL. Widow's Wail not being meant for pies then makes sense in that context, the sword not being made to harm a member of its original family. Arya thought of Hot Pie and Gendry as her "pack" or family while on the road and felt somewhat deserted by them. The wolf bakery is meant as fortification for her journey and the "trait" does sustain her while she is separated from her pack, keeps her in touch with Nymeria in absentia. So there does seem to be something there though the actual background behind it still eludes me. 

Edited by Evolett
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5 hours ago, Seams said:

I do remember thinking that Margaery's remark that Widow's Wail is not made for slicing pies might be wordplay

 

6 hours ago, Sandy Clegg said:

See my above post, but meat pies are essentially 'meat' forced inside a 'skin' (the pastry) that is not their own. So a perfect analogy for a being that has been skin-changed or warged.

 

I was just thinking of Margaery's comment on cutting the pie and realized Mag and Maggie are short forms of Margaret / Margaery and might put her in the same name group with Maggie the Frog, the Maegi Mirri, Maege Mormont etc. Maggie /Magpie crossed my mind too because of the little bird association, so I had a look at that as well. See what I found here

The magpie does appear to apply to Margaery and her bevy of chattering gossiping girls. What's more, the magpie belongs to the Corvidae family of perching birds which notably include crows and ravens. "Mag" is also the root of "knead" as in kneading dough and Greek magis  "kneaded mass, cake," mageus "one who kneads, baker; Further, "mag" is a reference to size. The wedding pie fashioned from dough and crafted into a huge pie - a mag pie. Also in our context, a "mageus" or "magus" is both a mage / maegi / wizard and a baker. 

Maybe this is a stretch but if the magpie / wedding pie is akin to a raven with "little birds" in it, then we may be looking at an allusion to ravens harbouring shadow souls of CotF (Varys' little birds really being little children) - and thus the link to skinchanging. Widow's Wail is a Valyrian steel sword and apparently not meant for slicing such "pies" but Ser Ilyn's, a new sword with a pommel carved of obsidian is. Obsidian is a different kind of "pie" - it's baked in the bowels of a volcano and Mormont calls it "lemon pie."

Perhaps this tells us obsidian is effective against hidden souls, capable of driving them out of the "pie" or "pyre" - like Drogo's soul released when he's burnt on the pyre and when Sam kills the Other. It would also suggest Valyrian steel or at least Widow's Wail is not the right weapon for driving out souls. 

Edited by Evolett
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  • 3 weeks later...
On 10/26/2022 at 8:26 AM, Sandy Clegg said:

feet and boots are very symbolic in ASOIAF as metaphors for skin-changing and 'slipping out of one's skin', so I wouldn't be surprised if that had been a suggestion from GRRM. In the ADWD prologue he makes the analogy clearer than it was in previous books:

 

Quote

As a boot was shaped to accept a foot, a dog was shaped to accept a collar, even a collar no human eye could see.

- ADWD, Prologue

So, feet slipping into shoes/boots are analogous to collars being slipped onto dogs. A form of taking control, or: skin-changing. So it's no surprise we see a plethora of feet/boot symbolism throughout the books, especially in characters like Bran, Jon and Arya who have something of this power.

In the Prologue of AGOT there’s this quote,

Quote

The great sentinel was right there at the top of the ridge, where Will had known it would be, its lowest branches a bare foot off the ground. Will slid in underneath, flat on his belly in the snow and the mud, and looked down on the empty clearing below.

In this quote the lowest branches of the great sentinel has Will sliding beneath them. Is Will the boot? 

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5 hours ago, Nadden said:

In the Prologue of AGOT there’s this quote,

In this quote the lowest branches of the great sentinel has Will sliding beneath them. Is Will the boot? 

This is actually an excellent catch, if we go with the conceit. And I think it’s deliberate by GRRM here. Will feels the sticky sap on his cheek when he’s in the tree, and fails to shout a warning. It’s very akin to him being ‘subtly controlled’ by an external force. And we know that trees are connected to Bloodraven/Bran so it’s possible they can use the trees to access nearby people’s minds. 
So yes, Will is the skin - the boot ‘flat on the ground’ awaiting the tree’s ‘bare foot’ to slip inside him.

Once you start to identify how GRRM employs these conceits, you will notice them everywhere - giving subtle clues as to when skin-changing is being referenced.

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4 hours ago, Sandy Clegg said:

Will feels the sticky sap on his cheek when he’s in the tree, and fails to shout a warning. It’s very akin to him being ‘subtly controlled’ by an external force. And we know that trees are connected to Bloodraven/Bran so it’s possible they can use the trees to access nearby people’s minds. 

In this scene Will is surprised when he no longer sees wildling raiders that he saw before from “the great sentinel right there at the top of the ridge, where Will had known it would be,” Do you think it likely that he had been skinned before? The far-eyes in the ironwood , a homophone for fairies, could be a tree spirit. Also, Will tells Waymar that the tree will tangle his sword up, Waymar’s sword is seemingly a objectification of him. 
 

“It was a splendid weapon, castle-forged, and new-made from the look of it. Will doubted it had ever been swung in anger.”

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1 hour ago, Nadden said:

Will is surprised when he no longer sees wildling raiders that he saw before from “the great sentinel right there at the top of the ridge, where Will had known it would be,” Do you think it likely that he had been skinned before

We know he was caught red-handed, skinning a buck from a high lord's forest if I recall, the crime for which he was sent to the wall. So he already has skinning symbolism. I'm actually writing a long piece about the prologue which mentions this. Been sitting on it for a month, I should just post it!

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