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Inns: signs, kneeling and regime change. Help sort out the hinnts?


Seams

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5 hours ago, Seams said:

Interesting point, especially with the notable violation of "guest right" and the connection between crossroads and inns. Later, when Brienne is being taken to Lady Stoneheart, she reminds her captors that she should be treated with courtesy because she has eaten at their inn and Jeyne Heddle tells her that guest right isn't as meaningful since the slaughter at the Red Wedding.

Also, Lord Walder at one point mentions the number of kings that have slept under his roof.

This also make me think again about the connection between inns and rivers (or inns and water). The course of the river changed 70 years ago, so the inn at the crossroads is no longer on the riverbank. The Twins is on and in and over the river. What is the connection between water and inns? I think it goes back to the crowned / drowned wordplay, but I can't quite put my finger on it.

Are you saying that marriages are another kind of "crossing," like two roads that intersect? That is a very insightful idea!

The only thing that I can think of in concerned to water is that water has always been used as symbolism for rebirth and the inns at a crossroads can be looked at as a weigh station to something; decision or happenstance which changes the course of a person's life. It could be a type of rebirth in a sense. 

I do actually think the marriages are a type of crossing. It interesting that the Frey do not have any Dornish marriages nor Iron Islands but have marriages from all the surrounding areas, Vale, Riverlands, Westerlands, Stormlands the North and even the free city of Braavos. 

What interests me is the fact that the Frey's have marriages with Royce, Waynwood and Hardyng. Lady Anya even has the Frey/waynwood children as wards. Also the Hardyng marriage, Deana is related to Harry the Heir in some way and since we don't have much family history on the Hardyng side- this marriage is an interesting avenue of speculation. 

Right now the Frey have chosen to back the Lannister and are using those marriages to their advantage. 

eta: Lady Anya has the girl as a ward and the boy is a squire for her son Donnel....I wonder how Sansa is going to react to that. 

Not to mention his 8 wives..... and the mother of Walder Rivers

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7 hours ago, Seams said:

 The course of the river changed 70 years ago, so the inn at the crossroads is no longer on the riverbank. 

I can't believe I didn't think of this earlier. Considering that it's in my signature. In terms of rivers moving. There is the concept of the meandering ratio. In relation to PI and PHI (the golden ratio) both found in nature. 

Anyway not to bore you with numbers. Basically Einstein explained that rivers meander because of both adhering to The PI ratio and Choas theory. 

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7 hours ago, Luddagain said:

I think that crossroads are important. In ancient Rome and Greece, we had gods associated with Crossroads including Hecate who opened doors to the underworld. Janus too was connected with doors and cross roads.  I think Arya in particular is connected to the crossroads as she has many characteristics of Hecate.

Yes! Thanks for bringing this up. I wonder whether Janos Slynt was supposed to represent a "crossroads" for Jon - time to step up and be the LC, be "the Ned" or forever be seen as someone who gets stepped on by the Lannisters? Or maybe Janos represents an intersection for Tyrion and Jon: Tyrion regretted that he hadn't executed the guy and Jon carried out the execution.

But I like the idea that inns are another kind of "door" to the underworld. That fits with some of the "magical landscape" ideas on a recent thread. (Actually, the magical landscape discussion grew out of this post about inns, in some ways.)

Very cool to think of Arya in terms of Hecate. I'm going to read up on this. Nice catch.

7 hours ago, Springwatch said:

If the Wiki is reliable, the river changed course in the time of the Dunk and Egg, in the years preceding the coronation of Aegon V. Maybe another book is needed...

ETA Maybe we'll find out more about Brynden Rivers - and how he changes the course of history!

Why would we need another book? (/joke) I bet you're right about a Dunk & Egg plot that will explain this. That series already had the diverting of a waterway, and the diversion led to a major shift in the history of two noble houses. So far, our best river stories have been the House Tully funerary ritual and the things that wash up on the Quiet Isle. I suppose Tyrion falling in the Rhoyne and Jon Connington contracting greyscale are also interesting river situations. Any others?

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Not 10 seconds, but a single storm is more than enough to cut off a meander, creating an oxbow lake and a new, straighter river channel "overnight". Before the Corps of Engineers intervened, it happened all the time along the Mississippi

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Learning new things is good. Sit in a window seat on a flight from NYC to Washington on a clear day and you can imagine that the Delaware River is going to be captured by Chesapeake Bay someday.

"The Mississippi River used to swing back and forth across the eastern half of the Louisiana coast," Willson said, pointing to the historic river maps that line the walls of his office at LSU. "That is, until we settled along the river and wanted to start making it reliable and safe. What we built over time, for the good of the U.S., was a highly engineered massive river system lined with levees and other control structures." from http://www.lsu.edu/departments/gold/2013/03/river_studies.shtml

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6 hours ago, Pain killer Jane said:

The only thing that I can think of in concerned to water is that water has always been used as symbolism for rebirth and the inns at a crossroads can be looked at as a weigh station to something; decision or happenstance which changes the course of a person's life. It could be a type of rebirth in a sense. 

 

 

This has me thinking about Rhaegar taking the hit from Robert's war hammer, and his life blood running into the river.

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On 8/10/2016 at 9:46 PM, Seams said:

a possible match between "buries" and "rubies".

"aye, and rubies." Could this be, "a Dayne buries"? On another recent thread, I noted that it's strange that the helms that wash up on the Quiet Isle are rusted, but the swords are shining. I think the Elder Brother is telling truths to Brienne, but maybe not the full truth and there are layers and hidden meanings behind his words.

I've had a ton of talks with people on reddit about the rubies, but I never noticed the anagrams here. wonderful.

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  • 1 year later...
On 8/20/2016 at 7:48 AM, Springwatch said:

If the Wiki is reliable, the river changed course in the time of the Dunk and Egg, in the years preceding the coronation of Aegon V. Maybe another book is needed...

ETA Maybe we'll find out more about Brynden Rivers - and how he changes the course of history!

 

On 8/20/2016 at 11:32 PM, Luddagain said:

I think that the change in the river IS significant, just not sure why.  I assume it had something to do with Bloodraven, Dunk and Egg.

Another very important inn/town is Pennytree. Not sure why but I know it is important.

I'm in the early stages of a Dunk & Egg re-read. The Fossoway / apple stuff has been calling to me, so I went back this old thread, recalling that it had some apple-related ideas in it. Instead, your prescient comments leapt out at me, anticipating the Bloodraven ideas that are so strongly presented through symbolism in The Hedge Knight and other stories. I think your comments are likely to prove very, very good predictions of future plot developments.

The Hedge Knight begins with a burial but quickly moves to an inn where Dunk encounters Egg for the first time. As I focused on the details in The Hedge Knight, it became clear to me that the Blackwood / Bracken and Bloodraven / Bittersteel stories are central, perhaps to the entire ASOIAF series. I don't want to duplicate here the re-read thread I just launched, so I'll just link here. I would welcome more of your thoughts there on Brynden Rivers, and his potential relationship to changing the course of the river, and on the importance of Pennytree, which is discussed in one of the follow-up posts on that thread.

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My take is different... and might be tinfoil-ly... but:

I will add that I think the red rust may be a metaphor for a bastard of the targaryens...

Quote

"That king is missing his sword," Lady Dustin observed.

It was true. Theon did not recall which king it was, but the longsword he should have held was gone. Streaks of rust remained to show where it had been. The sight disquieted him. He had always heard that the iron in the sword kept the spirits of the dead locked within their tombs. If a sword was missing … 

Since there was a sword missing when Ned visits the crypts with Robert in his very first chapter, and then Bran and Rickon disturbed at least one more during their stay, I have suspicions there may be a larger connection here.

It may be that this king missing his sword (blackfyre? Darksister?) is a reference to Jon or Bloodraven.

Anyway, great topic.

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On 4/10/2018 at 6:01 PM, LiveFirstDieLater said:

I will add that I think the red rust may be a metaphor for a bastard of the targaryens...

Quote

"That king is missing his sword," Lady Dustin observed.

It was true. Theon did not recall which king it was, but the longsword he should have held was gone. Streaks of rust remained to show where it had been. The sight disquieted him. He had always heard that the iron in the sword kept the spirits of the dead locked within their tombs. If a sword was missing … 

Since there was a sword missing when Ned visits the crypts with Robert in his very first chapter, and then Bran and Rickon disturbed at least one more during their stay, I have suspicions there may be a larger connection here.

It may be that this king missing his sword (blackfyre? Darksister?) is a reference to Jon or Bloodraven.

Anyway, great topic.

I agree that "streaks of rust remained" could be a reference to the famous Dark Sister or the Targ bastard who carried her. Wouldn't it be cool if Bran or one of his traveling companions brought Bloodraven's sword to the cave where the old man has been holed up?

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On 10/8/2016 at 7:39 PM, Seams said:

You know, you may have hit on something here. On another thread, I was repeating my old notion that Queen Alysanne built the Queenscrown tower as a place to hide with her illegitimate child, but noting that the proximity of that tower and an old ruined inn in The Gift is probably deliberate. I bet the combination of the old crossroads / Bellringer / Two Crowns / Clanking Dragon inn with the belltower also has some important purpose. Maybe inns and towers are paired - like in and out? Or two sides of the same coin.

I'm skeptical about that; Queenscrown was not built by Alysanne, but is was already standing and the villagers changed the tower's name because Alysanne stayed there for a little while as she was travelling to the Wall. We don't know how long she stayed there though, could be anywhere from just one night or a few weeks. There's also no evidence that Alysanne ever went back to Queenscrown or that she repeatedly visited a certain area. I'm certain that it would've been noticed or documented.

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1 hour ago, Vaedys Targaryen said:

I'm skeptical about that; Queenscrown was not built by Alysanne, but is was already standing and the villagers changed the tower's name because Alysanne stayed there for a little while as she was travelling to the Wall. We don't know how long she stayed there though, could be anywhere from just one night or a few weeks. There's also no evidence that Alysanne ever went back to Queenscrown or that she repeatedly visited a certain area. I'm certain that it would've been noticed or documented.

Ah, yes. A problem with two-year-old posts and two threads having the same conversation at once. Someone already long ago pointed out my error about the builder of the tower. I do think Alysanne had a bastard child during one or both of the separations during her marriage, however. 

 

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The inn at the crossroads just gets more and more extraordinary. Now it's three stories high, built of fine white stone, and with turrets and a bell tower - it seems to be morphing into a castle. I'd love some clues as to what the heck its story is, but I've never read Dunk & Egg, so I might just follow along the re-read thread.

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