Could Marwyn the Mage be a dragon?

[Dorian Martell]

5 hours ago, Seams said:

I would welcome conversation - that's why I come here. I do not welcome bullying.

I expect neither of us has anything more to say to each other. I already avoid you when I can, and I guess I'll now block your self-important posts altogether.

I would suggest you go and actually read what the definition of bullying is since you are not using it correctly. Disagreeing is not bullying. Neither is being snarky. So, enjoy blocking me. I hope it brings you much pleasure and helps you cope with your time here.

[OuttaOldtown]

4 minutes ago, Little Scribe of Naath said:

I thought he saw Sam's arrival through his glass candles, but I could be wrong.

I pointed out in a previous post that Alleras tells him they knew he was coming, I also think they knew what they were doing next as well. They knew he was waiting, but didn't arrive immediately. Kojja says they were going to see the grey Maesters and selling books. I think they were going to see Marwyn..

[Little Scribe of Naath]

7 minutes ago, OuttaOldtown said:

I pointed out in a previous post that Alleras tells him they knew he was coming, I also think they knew what they were doing next as well. They knew he was waiting, but didn't arrive immediately. Kojja says they were going to see the grey Maesters and selling books. I think they were going to see Marwyn..

Ooh good catch.

It's definitely possible that there is some connection between Marwyn and the Cinnamon Wind. Maybe he went on the Cinnamon Wind when he traveled to Asshai - wasn't it supposed to go around the trader's circle on the Jade Sea? Asshai would be on that circle, I guess, because it trades gold,gemstones and other stuff IIRC.

There was a great theory of @Lord Wraith on the Oberyn/Marwyn connection as well: 

 

[Dorian Martell]

3 minutes ago, OuttaOldtown said:

I pointed out in a previous post that Alleras tells him they knew he was coming, I also think they knew what they were doing next as well. They knew he was waiting, but didn't arrive immediately. Kojja says they were going to see the grey Maesters and selling books. I think they were going to see Marwyn..

The price of passage from Bravos, and the price of the feathered coat was a lot of books that sam had taken from the wall. Money must be made. 

[Clegane'sPup]

51 minutes ago, OuttaOldtown said:

 

I have really enjoyed reading your posts about Marwyn. Good work. Thanks

[Yuzzybus]

After looking at it more, I am thinking that the Hightowers are related to the Mother of Dragons slayer of lies prophecy.

Quote

Glowing like a sunset, a red sword was raised in the hand  of a blue-eyed king who cast no shadow. 

A cloth dragon swayed on poles amidst a cheering crowd.

From a smoking tower, a great stone beast took wing, breathing shadow fire...

mother of dragons, slayer of lies...

I think it is a safe to say that the first lie is that Stannis is not Azor Ahai (as much as I love him) and the second lie is that fAegon is not Aegon.

Never found a satisfying fit to lie number three. 

Melesandre's desire to wake a dragon from stone falls under the Stannis lie.

Jon Connington getting greyscale falls under the fAegon lie.

Seems like the third lie needs to be independent of the other two.

The Sigil of the Hightowers is "a white tower crowned with flames, on smoke grey," according to the wiki.  I think the third lie comes from Oldtown.

So who is the stone beast?  Marwyn, Alleras the sphinx, the Hightowers, the Maesters of the Citadel?

And what could shadow fire be?

 

Neat connections between the Cinnamon Wind and Alleras.  I never considered that Marwyn may have been monitoring Sam and Aemon in Braavos.

[ravenous reader]

6 hours ago, King Ned Stark said:

As far as the hidden Targs are concerned, the blame lies with Martin, he is the one after all that laid the hints about multiple characters possibly having Targaryen blood, I see no reason to discredit Marwyn much more than say, Jaime or Tyrion.

Judging from the weariness in sections of the fandom, GRRM may have overplayed his hand with this particular 'shtick'!  Apart from hidden paternity/identity being a well-worn (it's positively frayed, in GRRM's case...) fantasy trope, I think on a personal level GRRM has a need to imagine alternative families -- especially the possibility of having other fathers -- as an irresistible kind of therapy for himself.  We all have our 'blind spots' -- writers and readers alike.  From what I can glean of his background, from what he's willing to disclose, and reading between the lines, much of the impetus driving his urge towards the escape provided by creating fantasy worlds was based on his own rather unhappy childhood, particularly his strained relationship with his biological (presumably...one never knows without the solid evidence of that paternity test!) father:

Quote

Was your relationship with your parents close? 
My father was a distant figure. I don't think that he ever understood me, and I don't know that I ever understood him. We didn't use the term then, but you could probably say he was a functioning alcoholic. I saw him every day, but we hardly talked. The only thing that we really bonded over was sports.

Did you get out of Bayonne much before college? 
We never had a car. My father always said that drinking and driving was very bad, and he was not going to give up drinking [laughs]. My world was a very small world. For many years I stared out of our living-room window at the lights of Staten Island. To me, those lights of Staten Island were like Shangri-La, and Singapore, and Shanghai, or whatever. I read books, and I dreamed of Mars, and the planets in those books, and of the Hyborian Age of Robert E. Howard's Conan books, and later of Middle-earth – all these colorful places. I would dream of those places just as I dreamed of Staten Island, and Shanghai.

From:  http://www.rollingstone.com/tv/news/george-r-r-martin-the-rolling-stone-interview-20140423

Thus, creating a lot of 'bastards' with other father candidates waiting in the wings is a kind of wish fulfilment exercise for him. At the same time, GRRM is enough of an unflinching realist to know that he cannot unmake the past, no matter how masterfully he (re)writes it.  In all seriousness, I surmise this tension or ambivalence in the author-- between wishful thinking and grim realism -- is what A+J=T detractors are sensing behind the words, and what they mean when they say things like 'if Tyrion is not Tywin's son, it would destroy the impact of the relationship.' I agree.  The ironic pathos for GRRM lies not in the fact that someone else was actually his father, but in the fact that the man described above was, irretrievably.

6 hours ago, King Ned Stark said:

Quote

"Ask yourself why Aemon Targaryen was allowed to waste away at the wall, when by all rights he should've been Archmaester.  Blood, that's why.  He could not be trusted.  No more than I can." - Marwyn the Mage

And this from Lazy Leo:

Quote

"The sea is wet, the sun is warm, and the menagerie hates the mastiff."

Now, if one were so inclined, you could equate the menagerie to the sigils of the Houses of Westeros (wolf and bear and lion and stag) and the mastiff to the creature (dragons) that mastered them.

Illyrio calls Varys a wizard, Marwyn is called a Mage, seems like those two fellas would want an ally within the Citadel, seeing as how they control so much information and all.  For what it's worth, the term mastiff can be used synonymously with the word mossoler, which is an ancient breed of large, sturdy-built dogs that come from a common ancestor.  Red or black, a dragon is a dragon.

Your point on the 'menagerie' whipped into shape (almost like a circus-master) by the 'molosser'-- I think the correct term is 'molosser' not 'mossoler' -- is masterful!  Perhaps that's why Lady Dustin urges us to be 'dogged,' encouraging us to discover the true identity of a certain Maester...

 

6 hours ago, OuttaOldtown said:

"Marwyn wore a chain of many metals around his bull’s neck. Save for that, he looked more like a dockside thug than a maester. His head was too big for his body, and the way it thrust forward from his shoulders, together with that slab of jaw, made him look as if he were about to tear off someone’s head. Though short and squat, he was heavy in the chest and shoulders, with a round, rock-hard ale belly straining at the laces of the leather jerkin he wore in place of robes. Bristly white hair sprouted from his ears and nostrils. His brow beetled, his nose had been broken more than once, and sourleaf had stained his teeth a mottled red. He had the biggest hands that Sam had ever seen."

 

And this less detailed one provided from Pate the acolyte. 

 

"..he could not deny that Marwyn looked more a mastiff than a maester.....Some even whispered that once he had killed a man with his fists."

To @King Ned Stark's point about the mastiff or 'molosser' dog, for which an alternate term is 'molossus,' the description you've highlighted above evokes the image of a larger-than-life stone 'colossus'!  Because of their implacable ferocity (here represented by the sourleaf staining his teeth a mottled red, like the mouth of a dog full of flesh and blood after having savaged an offender), molossi were used as guardian dogs (either home or flock guardians) in history and legend.  Moreover, as representative of this threshold guardian role, stone statues of them were often placed at entranceways in order to dissuade unwelcome intruders:  

http://www.bulldoginformation.com/molossers-mastiff-type-dogs.html

An excerpt from the above-mentioned article, beneath the image of the dog statue, reads 'Molossian hounds were often used as guard dogs by herdsmen and as property guard dogs by patricians in the city.  Aristophanes, the fifth century comic dramatist, speaks of the hazards of trying to get past a doorway guarded by a Molossian dog.'

The role of the threshold guardian molossus is obviously a suitable one for Archmaester Marwyn as he stands guard at the Citadel, fiercely presiding over some arcane knowledge to which not all may be privy.  The association of 'molossus' with 'colossus' also has associations with the Titan of Braavos, who guards the entrance to the harbor, and who may, like Marwyn, be considered a kind of 'dockside thug' (in any case, if I were looking for dockside thugs, I would first look in Braavos!):

Quote

A Feast for Crows - Arya I

The last of the night's stars had vanished . . . all but the pair dead ahead. "It's two stars now."

"Two eyes," said Denyo. "The Titan sees us."

The Titan of Braavos. Old Nan had told them stories of the Titan back in Winterfell. He was a giant as tall as a mountain, and whenever Braavos stood in danger he would wake with fire in his eyes, his rocky limbs grinding and groaning as he waded out into the sea to smash the enemies. "The Braavosi feed him on the juicy pink flesh of little highborn girls," Nan would end, and Sansa would give a stupid squeak. But Maester Luwin said the Titan was only a statue, and Old Nan's stories were only stories.

Could Marwyn have some kind of Braavos connection?  Braavos is described as 'the bastard child who ran away from home,' which would be applicable to a number of characters, including Bloodraven and possibly Marwyn.  The other shady character who has a definite Braavos connection is Peter Baelish.  Incidentally, he also has a Vale connection where bastards are traditionally called 'Stones':

Quote

A Storm of Swords - Sansa VI

Within, the tower seemed even smaller. An open stone stair wound round the inside wall, from undercroft to roof. Each floor was but a single room. The servants lived and slept in the kitchen at ground level, sharing the space with a huge brindled mastiff and a half-dozen sheep-dogs. Above that was a modest hall, and higher still the bedchamber. There were no windows, but arrowslits were embedded in the outer wall at intervals along the curve of the stair. Above the hearth hung a broken longsword and a battered oaken shield, its paint cracked and flaking.

The device painted on the shield was one Sansa did not know; a grey stone head with fiery eyes, upon a light green field. "My grandfather's shield," Petyr explained when he saw her gazing at it. "His own father was born in Braavos and came to the Vale as a sellsword in the hire of Lord Corbray, so my grandfather took the head of the Titan as his sigil when he was knighted."

"It's very fierce," said Sansa.

In this scene at Littlefinger's seat in the Fingers, we also find a mastiff acting as home and/or flock guardian. Does Marwyn have a connection to Littlefinger and/or the Fingers?  He certainly might be as short as Littlefinger, but Littlefinger is gracile rather than stocky.

6 hours ago, OuttaOldtown said:

Ser Marwyn is removed as Captain of the Guards of the Eyrie and is replaced by Ser Lothor Brune by Littlefinger. He then becomes Captain at the Gates of the Moon serving cadet branch of House Royce. Here's the physical description of the High Steward of the Vale as told by Sansa:

 

"Lord Nestor Royce was a bullnecked, barrel-chested, balding man with a grey-shot beard and a stern look"

 

Can't help but notice how close that is to Maester Marwyn's "bull’s neck" & a heavy chest as described by Sam, but he's only one Royce, how about Yohn Royce of the senior branch of the House:

 

"The Lord of Runestone stood as tall as the Hound. Though his hair was grey and his face lined, Lord Yohn still looked as though he could break most younger men like twigs in those huge gnarled hands.....Bronze Yohn had slate-grey eyes, half-hidden beneath the bushiest eyebrows she had ever seen."

In addition to the physical descriptions of the Royces resembling Marwyn, and molossi and colossi in general, there is a symbolic connection of molossi/colossi to the Vale, particularly in the role of the Royces who are designated threshold guardian -- Keeper of the Gates -- at the base of the Giant's Lance (another Titanesque reference).

Given his imposing stature and stocky solidity, I would wager Marwyn's name was Marwyn Stone (like a statue), Hill (like a mountain/rock), Pyke, or Storm.  He doesn't seem a flowers, waters, snow, rivers, or sand.

6 hours ago, Balerion's Whiskers said:

I've thought for years that he's possibly a Royce. Who else but someone whose family owns a supposed magical suit of armor guarded by runes engraved on it would be a student of magic.The only other Marwyn in the books being from the Vale isn't an actual clue, but it does appear that some names are regional. The physical description and the family's warded armor are what convinced me.

The bronze-magic connection is good.  Also, there might be a pun on 'rune' with 'ruin,' whereby a rune can be a magical ancient stone...which would make Marwyn a magical Stone bastard.

6 hours ago, OuttaOldtown said:

I've considered the Hightower connection as well, we've had very few clues as to their physical traits

Gerold Hightower, the White Bull...could work with the bullish neck and shoulders.

3 hours ago, OuttaOldtown said:

“Marwyn, he named himself,” the woman replied in the Common Tongue. “From the sea. Beyond the sea. The Seven Lands, he said. Sunset Lands. Where men are iron and dragons rule. He taught me this speech.”

“A maester in Asshai,” Ser Jorah mused. “Tell me, Godswife, what did this Marwyn wear about his neck?”

“A chain so tight it was like to choke him, Iron Lord, with links of many metals.”

In light of @King Ned Stark's mastiff/molossus association, this particular quote is reminiscent of a guard dog wearing a chain around its neck as a leash in order to yank it back!

2 hours ago, The Fattest Leech said:

Sam is in Oldtown to train a s a maester and the third link is generally the copper link, which is astronomy. The copper bands on the horn are broken and it's a good thing Sam is in a place that trains its people to forge metals and also has a library that holds secrets from hundreds of years past. Sam does love to read and learn about past, as Jon also commanded him to do.

One funny line that Leo says in the AFFC prologue is, "I understand you won your copper link. I'll drink to that."" which is kinda ironic because Jon told Sam to make a drinking horn out of the broken horn he gave him. Wouldn't it be funny if Sam fixed the horn, filled it with ale, tried to drink from it (incorrectly) and accidentally blew the damn thing and woke an ice dragon?

All good points!  I agree, Sam is a stutterer and shaker, who one gets the feeling is going to make a momentous, though inadvertent and likely tragicomic contribution to the way 'things go down' by 'shaking things up'!  Isn't the copper link 'history' and the bronze 'astronomy'?  History is broken.  @Feather Crystal might say that time itself is broken and the broken bands represent the wards coming 'unwarded'!

He's Sam of Horn Hill.  I can't imagine that the horn in question is sailing away from him on the Cinnamon Wind, before he's able to discover its true nature.

[The Fattest Leech]

4 minutes ago, ravenous reader said:

 

All good points!  I agree, Sam is a stutterer and shaker, who one gets the feeling is going to make a momentous, though inadvertent and likely tragicomic contribution to the way 'things go down' by 'shaking things up'!  Isn't the copper link 'history' and the bronze 'astronomy'?  History is broken.  might say that time itself is broken and the broken bands represent the wards coming 'unwarded'!

He's Sam of Horn Hill.  I can't imagine that the horn in question is sailing away from him on the Cinnamon Wind, before he's able to discover its true nature.

Agh! Yes. I wrote that backwards. Fixing it now. Thanks.

[OuttaOldtown]

16 minutes ago, Clegane'sPup said:

I have really enjoyed reading your posts about Marwyn. Good work. Thanks

Thank you, it's an area I've been focusing on for a long time..

23 minutes ago, Little Scribe of Naath said:

Ooh good catch.

It's definitely possible that there is some connection between Marwyn and the Cinnamon Wind. Maybe he went on the Cinnamon Wind when he traveled to Asshai - wasn't it supposed to go around the trader's circle on the Jade Sea? Asshai would be on that circle, I guess, because it trades gold,gemstones and other stuff IIRC.

There was a great theory of @Lord Wraith on the Oberyn/Marwyn connection as well: 

 

And you must remember that learning of a Maester in Asshai seemed completely insane at the time. From the same order that keep insisting that magic no longer exists? Who better for a man like Oberyn to befriend at the Citadel, and for his daughter to learn from years later..

ill check it out..

[Dorian Martell]

31 minutes ago, Yuzzybus said:

So who is the stone beast?  Marwyn, Alleras the sphinx, the Hightowers, the Maesters of the Citadel?

And what could shadow fire be?

Euron sacking Oldtown could be the stone beast atop the burning tower breathing shadow fire. Shadow=Magic in the novels.  Shadowbinders, shadowlands, shadowbaby assassins ect. Euron is experimenting with magic, specifically shade (shadow) of the evening as per the vic chapters in feast and the recently read Aeron chapter.  I am sure it will factor in his attack on oldtown. 

[OuttaOldtown]

38 minutes ago, Dorian Martell said:

The price of passage from Bravos, and the price of the feathered coat was a lot of books that sam had taken from the wall. Money must be made. 

The grey sheep never get Jon's letters and Sam is warned by Marwyn that telling them anything is risking getting poisoned. So I don't think Aemon's books is intended for their hands, and I don't think selling books is a profitable aside from rare ones, and who possesses rare books and scrolls? Regardless, I think this journey of theirs is about other things besides wealth..

[Dorian Martell]

5 minutes ago, OuttaOldtown said:

The grey sheep never get Jon's letters and Sam is warned by Marwyn that telling them anything is risking getting poisoned. So I don't think Aemon's books is intended for their hands, and I don't think selling books is a profitable aside from rare ones, and who possesses rare books and scrolls? Regardless, I think this journey of theirs is about other things besides wealth..

The books were sent specifically to be exchanged for currency to pay for the journey. They weren't secret scrolls, they were just rare, and the citadel values rare books, scrolls and manuscripts 

[OuttaOldtown]

5 minutes ago, Dorian Martell said:

The books were sent specifically to be exchanged for currency to pay for the journey. They weren't secret scrolls, they were just rare, and the citadel values rare books, scrolls and manuscripts 

Disagree, that's assuming they're being honest with Sam. The fact that Marwyn is leaving on this very same ship makes me believe they'd want him to have the advantage over whoever the grey sheep are sending..

Get myself to Slaver’s Bay, in Aemon’s place. The swan ship that delivered Slayer should serve my needs well enough. The grey sheep will send their man on a galley, I don’t doubt. With fair winds I should reach her first.”

[Clegane'sPup]

5 minutes ago, Dorian Martell said:

The books were sent specifically to be exchanged for currency to pay for the journey. They weren't secret scrolls, they were just rare, and the citadel values rare books, scrolls and manuscripts 

True the citadel values books. That is why Aemon takes them with him on the journey It's when the other NW guy spends all the money that Sam uses the books and stuff to secure passage from Braavos to OT. Vague, I know, I just don't have the inclination to search out the quotes.

[Yuzzybus]

42 minutes ago, Dorian Martell said:

Euron sacking Oldtown could be the stone beast atop the burning tower breathing shadow fire. Shadow=Magic in the novels.  Shadowbinders, shadowlands, shadowbaby assassins ect. Euron is experimenting with magic, specifically shade (shadow) of the evening as per the vic chapters in feast and the recently read Aeron chapter.  I am sure it will factor in his attack on oldtown. 

Possible. 

Spoiler

His Valyerian armor does look smokey.

I had Euron Greyjoy in mind for the second Mother of Dragons, bride of fire prophecy.

Quote

A corpse stood at the prow of a ship, eyes bright in his dead face, grey lips smiling sadly.

Is Euron going to Oldtown?

Spoiler

The Forsaken chapter made me doubt it.  They are near the Arbor and head out to sea.  They mention the Redwyne fleet rounding Dorne and Leyton Hightower's sons moving down the whispering sound to catch them in the rear.  Euron may send those he considers expendable to Oldtown, but I doubt that he would willingly go into that trap himself.  Unless he has a kraken up his sleeve.

I think he may be planning to follow Victarion to slavers bay.

[Dorian Martell]

1 hour ago, Clegane'sPup said:

True the citadel values books. That is why Aemon takes them with him on the journey It's when the other NW guy spends all the money that Sam uses the books and stuff to secure passage from Braavos to OT. Vague, I know, I just don't have the inclination to search out the quotes.

I will find them later if i am so inclined 

[Dorian Martell]

21 minutes ago, Yuzzybus said:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

His Valyerian armor does look smokey.

I had Euron Greyjoy in mind for the second Mother of Dragons, bride of fire prophecy.

Is Euron going to Oldtown?

  Reveal hidden contents

The Forsaken chapter made me doubt it.  They are near the Arbor and head out to sea.  They mention the Redwyne fleet rounding Dorne and Leyton Hightower's sons moving down the whispering sound to catch them in the rear.  Euron may send those he considers expendable to Oldtown, but I doubt that he would willingly go into that trap himself.  Unless he has a kraken up his sleeve.

I think he may be planning to follow Victarion to slavers bay.

The IB have sacked the Arbor, they are raiding ships off the coast of Dorne and up the Honeywine and they have already attempted to sneak into the harbor of Oldtown. So, Yes, Euron is going there. He will meet hte reacher forces in battle after he fights the Redwyne fleet.
The smiling corpse at hte prow of the ship is Aemon. He was dying on the voyage to Bravos, and died enroute to Oldtown. 
that being said, I don't think he is going to follow Vic to Slaver's bay. He has seen something in a vision. That is why he let vic leave with the horn. I do not think euron expects vic to return, but does expect to see Dany, or he has seen a vision of something he thinks is Dany. Possible the same woman in Aeron's vision.
 

[Light a wight tonight]

10 hours ago, Seams said:

 

If you don't have something constructive to add to the OP, why not refrain from commenting? The OP offered evidence and made a reasonable query. You guys might be tired of discussion that seems to revisit old theories, but that's no reason to make someone else feel bad. I know about feeling bad, because DM did the same smug thing on one of my threads. The chat room would be a good place to have a dialogue where you can applaud your own superiority to the rest of the forum without trying to publicly humiliate other people.

Mmmm, the original post was of such extreme unlikeliness that it invited refutation, if not ridicule. In this narrative there is absolutely no hint that a human could be dragonish, so why even suggest that? 

This forum used to be pretty bare-knuckle, with various posters doing their best to demolish someone else's theories. F-bombs here and there and questioning of intelligence, that sort of thing. What's posted now is comparatively tame. Still, a certain degree of thickness of skin is useful. This isn't kindergarten.

[Yuzzybus]

 

8 minutes ago, Dorian Martell said:

The IB have sacked the Arbor, they are raiding ships off the coast of Dorne and up the Honeywine and they have already attempted to sneak into the harbor of Oldtown. So, Yes, Euron is going there. He will meet hte reacher forces in battle after he fights the Redwyne fleet.
The smiling corpse at hte prow of the ship is Aemon. He was dying on the voyage to Bravos, and died enroute to Oldtown. 
that being said, I don't think he is going to follow Vic to Slaver's bay. He has seen something in a vision. That is why he let vic leave with the horn. I do not think euron expects vic to return, but does expect to see Dany, or he has seen a vision of something he thinks is Dany. Possible the same woman in Aeron's vision.
 

How does Aemon fit with bride of fire motif if the other two are Khal Drogo and Jon Snow?

Quote

Her silver was trotting through the grass, to a darkling stream beneath a sea of stars.

A corpse stood at the prow of a ship, eyes bright in his dead face, grey lips smiling sadly.

A blue flower grew from a chink in a wall of ice, and filled the air with sweetness.

. . . mother of dragons, bride of fire . . .

Spoiler

I think the corpse on the ship is Aeron Damphair, the ship is the Silence, and Euron Dany's next important husband.

 

[Yuzzybus]

 

8 minutes ago, Light a wight tonight said:

Mmmm, the original post was of such extreme unlikeliness that it invited refutation, if not ridicule. In this narrative there is absolutely no hint that a human could be dragonish, so why even suggest that? 

This forum used to be pretty bare-knuckle, with various posters doing their best to demolish someone else's theories. F-bombs here and there and questioning of intelligence, that sort of thing. What's posted now is comparatively tame. Still, a certain degree of thickness of skin is useful. This isn't kindergarten.

I thought it was pretty obvious that I was not talking about a literal dragon but the 2 legged kind.  And in case you still do not understand, I mean a human with a connection with Valyria not a wyvern.

No offense taken.