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Wow, I never noticed that v.15


Lost Melnibonean

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4 hours ago, Isobel Harper said:

crone (n.) late 14c., from Anglo-French carogne, from Old North French carogne, term of abuse for a cantankerous or withered woman, literally "carrion," from Vulgar Latin *caronia (see carrion).

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=crone

So "crone" alludes to someone dead?  :o

 in french, the term is a bit depreciative, but the first signification is not really "dead" but the idea of having a too long life (there is no more flesh/blood/heart/humanity) : "vieille carne"= "old meat". The Undying are a very ironic and perfect illustration, for example, or BR. But for Old Nan, it would be an insult because she is kind and inoffensive^^

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5 hours ago, GloubieBoulga said:

 

 in french, the term is a bit depreciative, but the first signification is not really "dead" but the idea of having a too long life (there is no more flesh/blood/heart/humanity) : "vieille carne"= "old meat". The Undying are a very ironic and perfect illustration, for example, or BR. But for Old Nan, it would be an insult because she is kind and inoffensive^^

The word crone has a negative connotation in English as well.  That's why I looked up the history of the word.  "Crone" is an odd word to give a god, especially on revered.  I was expecting its origin to be something more neutral in meaning. 

Is carogne still used in French, or just vielle carne?

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50 minutes ago, Lost Melnibonean said:

When Bran first sees Leaf, he mistakes her for Arya. He then sees that Leaf has eyes like a cat's and thinks, "No one has eyes like that." 

Of course, no one will soon be seeing out the eyes of a cat. 

:cheers:

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Compare this...

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In the end, Tyrion chose a cask of strongwine marked as the private stock of Lord Runceford Redwyne, the grandfather of the present Lord of the Arbor. The taste of it was languorous and heady on the tongue, the color a purple so dark that it looked almost black in the dim-lit cellar.

Tyrion I, Dance 1

To this...

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Like his sire, Young Griff had blue eyes, but where the father’s eyes were pale, the son’s were dark. By lamplight they turned black, and in the light of dusk they seemed purple. 

Tyrion IV, Dance 14

II

Rolly and Young Griff were sparring aboard the Shy Maid in Tyrion IV, Dance 14. Rolly was wearing armor when Young griff knocked him into the water, yet Rolly was able to rise to the surface. 

III

The Mother Royne has four daughters, the wild, the darking, the smiling, and the shy. 

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 A look was all the answer that he got. Egg had big eyes, and somehow his shaven head made them look even larger. In the dimness of the lamplit cellar they looked black, but in better light their true color could be seen: deep and dark and purple. Valyrian eyes, thought Dunk. In Westeros, few but the blood of the dragon had eyes that color, or hair that shone like beaten gold and strands of silver woven all together.  

Then in the next paragraph...

 When they'd been poling down the Greenblood, the orphan girls had made a game of rubbing Egg's shaven head for luck. It made the boy blush redder than a pomegranate. "Girls are so stupid ," he would say. "The next one who touches me is going into the river." Dunk had to tell him, "Then I'll be touching you. I'll give you such a clout in the ear you'll be hearing bells for a moon's turn." That only goaded the boy to further insolence. "Better bells than stupid girls ," he insisted, but he never threw anyone into the river.

Dunk and Egg had traveled with orphans on the Greenblood (Yandry and Ysilla), Egg getting his head rubbed for good luck (Tyrion) and threatened with hearing bells (JonCon).

Then there is the Aegons' straw hats. 

https://asearchoficeandfire.com/?q=straw+hat&scope[]=adwd&scope[]=tmk&scope[]=tss

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Rolly and Young Griff were sparring aboard the Shy Maid in Tyrion IV, Dance 14. Rolly was wearing armor when Young griff knocked him into the water, yet Rolly was able to rise to the surface.

Rolly is a duck.  Of course he can swim. :D

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Here is a great example from Davos II, Dance 15, of why ASOIAF is so fun to read...

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Davos had always been fond of this city, since first he'd come here as a cabin boy on Cobblecat. Though small compared to Oldtown and King's Landing, it was clean and well-ordered, with wide straight cobbled streets that made it easy for a man to find his way.

He's referring to White Harbor, of course, Wyman Manderly's seat. We will see that unlike other Northern Lords, Wyman has not lost his way. 

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The houses were built of whitewashed stone, with steeply pitched roofs of dark grey slate. 

Those are Stark colors, gray on white. 

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Roro Uhoris, the Cobblecat's cranky old master, used to claim that he could tell one port from another just by the way they smelled. Cities were like women, he insisted; each one had its own unique scent. Oldtown was as flowery as a perfumed dowager. Lannisport was a milkmaid, fresh and earthy, with woodsmoke in her hair. King's Landing reeked like some unwashed whore. But White Harbor's scent was sharp and salty, and a little fishy too. "She smells the way a mermaid ought to smell," Roro said. "She smells of the sea."

Not a pretty perfume scent (so sweet it might draw flies better than honey) but honest. Think about how some characters in ASOIAF, like Illyrio, use perfumes to mask a fouler smell--not Wyman"s White Harbor. 

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I

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The three men were erect. The sight of their arousal was arousing, though Daenerys Targaryen found it comical as well. The men were all of a height, with long legs and flat bellies, every muscle as sharply etched as if it had been chiseled out of stone. Even their faces looked the same, somehow … which was passing strange, since one had skin as dark as ebony, while the second was as pale as milk, and the third gleamed like burnished copper.

Daenerys III, Dance 16

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The cream-and-gold dragon was suckling at her left breast, the green-and-bronze at the right. Her arms cradled them close. The black-and-scarlet beast was draped across her shoulders, its long sinuous neck coiled under her chin.

Daenerys X, Game 72

II

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Xaro perused the fruits on the platter Jhiqui offered him and chose a persimmon. Its orange skin matched the color of the coral in his nose. He took a bite and pursed his lips. "Tart."

"Would my lord prefer something sweeter?"

"Sweetness cloys. Tart fruit and tart women give life its savor."

...

"A craven's knife can slay a queen as easily as a hero's. I would sleep more soundly if I knew my heart's delight had kept her fierce horselords close around her. In Qarth, you had three bloodriders who never left your side. Wherever have they gone?"

"Aggo, Jhoqo, and Rakharo still serve me." He is playing games with me. Dany could play as well. "I am only a young girl and know little of such things, but older, wiser men tell me that to hold Meereen I must control its hinterlands, all the land west of Lhazar as far south as the Yunkish hills."

"Your hinterlands are not precious to me. Your person is. Should any ill befall you, this world would lose its savor."

Daenerys III, Dance 16

Dang, Xaro called Daenerys a tart.

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3 hours ago, Lost Melnibonean said:

"Sweetness cloys. Tart fruit and tart women give life its savor."

Dang, Xaro called Daenerys a tart.

This might be an allusion to Brienne of Tart(h). Or to the fruit tarts Arya steals as Hot Pie prepares them for Vargo Hoat.

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Visenya in the World Book is the one to insist upon making a King's Guard to protect Aegon. Sansa is making the "Winged Knights" to protect Sweetrobin. Visenya is also the one to conquer the Vale... food for thought.

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7 hours ago, Lost Melnibonean said:

How so? 

To Brienne, through the tart / Tarth similarity. And to Arya through the tarts she steals just before turning Harrenhal upside down with the Weasel Soup strategy. Xaro is talking about women who are not cloyingly sweet; women who give life savor. So the tart fruit in his hand and mouth is a way of adding a layer of meaning to what he's saying by evoking these warrior women we have seen in other storylines. They are not sweet, they are warriors. (Maybe there will even be savor / savior wordplay, depending how their storylines play out.)

The pie symbolism is complex and I've made only a few educated guesses but haven't nailed it down, by any means - Frey pie, wedding pies with live birds inside - these both appear at wedding feasts that are critical moments and must be important. There also seems to be a pie link to the plum / lump wordplay, which seems to be connected to pregnancy or producing an heir. (Which means that it is part of the gigantic rebirth symbolism involving eggs hatching, revival after drowning, waking up from a dream, etc.) Xaro is eating his tart food alone, not sharing a pie. So maybe this is reinforcement that, in spite of his marriage proposal to her, he is gay and doesn't want to make or share a pie with her.

But I may be wrong.

ETA: Xaro's ornamented nose may be a sign that he is part of the nose / knows wordplay: Jon Snow knows nothing; Tyrion's nose is cut off. I think the symbol means that Xaro knows a lot and we should pay close attention to things he says or does. Almost like reading a prophecy.

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Found this while doing research for my Daario theory. I did not remotely remember reading it before, and can't think how I managed to miss the potential import.

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ADWD, Dany VI:

As Daario Naharis took a knee before her, Dany's heart gave a lurch. His hair was matted with dried blood, and on his temple a deep cut glistened red and raw. His right sleeve was bloody almost to the elbow. "You're hurt," she gasped.

"This?" Daario touched his temple. "A crossbowman tried to put a quarrel through my eye, but I outrode it. I was hurrying home to my queen, to bask in the warmth of her smile." He shook his sleeve, spattering red droplets. "This blood is not mine. One of my serjeants said we should go over to the Yunkai'i, so I reached down his throat and pulled his heart out. I meant to bring it to you as a gift for my silver queen, but four of the Cats cut me off and came snarling and spitting after me. One almost caught me, so I threw the heart into his face."

 

The bolded seriously stood out to me. How on earth did I miss it before? 

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That much proved true. The command came down from the Tattered Prince through his captains and his serjeants: strike the tents, load the mules, saddle the horses, we march for Yunkai at the break of day. "Not that them Yunkish bastards will be wanting us inside their Yellow City, sniffing round their daughters," predicted Baqq, the squint-eyed Myrish crossbowman whose name meant Beans. "We'll get provisions in Yunkai, maybe fresh horses, then it will be on to Meereen to dance with the dragon queen. So hop quick, Frog, and put a nice edge on your master's sword. Might be he'll need it soon."  ADwD, The Windblown

Many a conflicting tale is told of the death of the queen’s dragon. Some credit Hobb the Hewer and his axe, though this is almost certainly mistaken. Could the same man truly have slain two dragons on the same night and in the same manner? Some speak of an unnamed spearman, “a blood-soaked giant” who leapt from the Dragonpit’s broken dome onto the dragon’s back. Others relate how a knight named Ser Warrick Wheaton slashed a wing from Syrax with a Valyrian steel sword. A crossbowman named Bean would claim the kill afterward, boasting of it in many a wine sink and tavern, until one of the queen’s loyalists grew tired of his wagging tongue and cut it out. The truth of the matter no one will ever know—except that Syrax died that nightThe Princess and the Queen

Interesting that these two men share a profession and such a similar name. 

Quentyn heard the sellswords shouting. Caggo was calling for the chains, and Pretty Meris was screaming at someone to step aside. The dragon moved awkwardly on the ground, like a man scrabbling on his knees and elbows, but quicker than the Dornish prince would have believed. When the Windblown were too late to get out of his way, Viserion let loose with another roar. Quentyn heard the rattle of chains, the deep thrum of a crossbow.

"No," he screamed, "no, don't, don't," but it was too late. The fool was all that he had time to think as the quarrel caromed off Viserion's neck to vanish in the gloom. A line of fire gleamed in its wake—dragon's blood, glowing gold and red.

The crossbowman was fumbling for another quarrel as the dragon's teeth closed around his neck. The man wore the mask of a Brazen Beast, the fearsome likeness of a tiger. As he dropped his weapon to try and pry apart Viserion's jaws, flame gouted from the tiger's mouth. The man's eyes burst with soft popping sounds, and the brass around them began to run. The dragon tore off a hunk of flesh, most of the sellsword's neck, then gulped it down as the burning corpse collapsed to the floor.

Was this Baqq (whose name means Beans) hiding in disguise?

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