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POEMS (or other sundry quotes) that remind you of ASOIAF


ravenous reader

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3 hours ago, aDanceWithFlagons said:

Short and simple from James Morrison

 

Moment of inner freedom
when the mind is opened & the
infinite universe revealed
& the soul is left to wander
dazed & confus’d searching
here & there for teachers & friends.
~~~~~~~~~~~~

Moment of Freedom
as the prisoner
blinks in the sun
like a mole
from his hole

a child’s 1st trip
away from home

That moment of Freedom

~

~

The brings to mind the young Starks and Snow leaving home to experience the world beyond Winterfell. Especially Bran concerning the universe revealed.

Welcome to our poetry thread @aDanceWithFlagons, and thank you for that illuminating contribution!  :)

I'm reminded of the curious dialectic surrounding Winterfell as both a home and a prison of sorts, from which Bran seeks to free himself, albeit reluctantly.  There are other 'prisons' besides, for example the cage of a body which imprisons a crippled child eager to climb over walls, and the mind's eye of a greenseer calling to be unshuttered:

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A Storm of Swords - Bran I

"Then you teach me." Bran still feared the three-eyed crow who haunted his dreams sometimes, pecking endlessly at the skin between his eyes and telling him to fly. "You're a greenseer."

"No," said Jojen, "only a boy who dreams. The greenseers were more than that. They were wargs as well, as you are, and the greatest of them could wear the skins of any beast that flies or swims or crawls, and could look through the eyes of the weirwoods as well, and see the truth that lies beneath the world.

 

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A Clash of Kings - Bran I

Bran preferred the hard stone of the window seat to the comforts of his featherbed and blankets. Abed, the walls pressed close and the ceiling hung heavy above him; abed, the room was his cell, and Winterfell his prison. Yet outside his window, the wide world still called.

He could not walk, nor climb nor hunt nor fight with a wooden sword as once he had, but he could still look. He liked to watch the windows begin to glow all over Winterfell as candles and hearth fires were lit behind the diamond-shaped panes of tower and hall, and he loved to listen to the direwolves sing to the stars.

Of late, he often dreamed of wolves. They are talking to me, brother to brother, he told himself when the direwolves howled. He could almost understand them . . . not quite, not truly, but almost . . . as if they were singing in a language he had once known and somehow forgotten. The Walders might be scared of them, but the Starks had wolf blood. Old Nan told him so. "Though it is stronger in some than in others," she warned.

Summer's howls were long and sad, full of grief and longing. Shaggydog's were more savage. Their voices echoed through the yards and halls until the castle rang and it seemed as though some great pack of direwolves haunted Winterfell, instead of only two . . . two where there had once been six. Do they miss their brothers and sisters too? Bran wondered. Are they calling to Grey Wind and Ghost, to Nymeria and Lady's Shade? Do they want them to come home and be a pack together?

"Who can know the mind of a wolf?" Ser Rodrik Cassel said when Bran asked him why they howled. Bran's lady mother had named him castellan of Winterfell in her absence, and his duties left him little time for idle questions.

"It's freedom they're calling for," declared Farlen, who was kennelmaster and had no more love for the direwolves than his hounds did. "They don't like being walled up, and who's to blame them? Wild things belong in the wild, not in a castle."

 

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A Clash of Kings - Bran I

Behind the trees the walls rose, piles of dead man-rock that loomed all about this speck of living wood. Speckled grey they rose, and moss-spotted, yet thick and strong and higher than any wolf could hope to leap. Cold iron and splintery wood closed off the only holes through the piled stones that hemmed them in. His brother would stop at every hole and bare his fangs in rage, but the ways stayed closed.

He had done the same the first night, and learned that it was no good. Snarls would open no paths here. Circling the walls would not push them back. Lifting a leg and marking the trees would keep no men away. The world had tightened around them, but beyond the walled wood still stood the great grey caves of man-rock. Winterfell, he remembered, the sound coming to him suddenly. Beyond its sky-tall man-cliffs the true world was calling, and he knew he must answer or die.

 

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On 1/31/2017 at 6:25 PM, ravenous reader said:

In terms of the Holy Communion motif, this scene at the Wall stands out, presided over by Lord Commander Mormont at the 'altar' like the high priest administering the rites of Communion, at which the new recruits themselves represent the 'bread' and the 'wine' about to be sacrificed at the well for the welfare of the realm, as they prepare to give up all their worldly claims to names, fortunes, lands, families, women, children, etc. and become 'brothers' (another name for monks or priests) of the Night's Watch:

This is fantastic and I never thought about it like that but yes you are right. 

 

On 1/31/2017 at 6:25 PM, ravenous reader said:

Great example!  Dolorous Edd's anecdotes are a veritable treasure trove.  Drowning in wine is therefore a bit like falling into a well in terms of the sacrificial/rebirth aspect.  And his notion of jumping into the pot himself is reminiscent of all of GRRM's disturbing cannibalism references, especially surrounding such dubious concoctions as 'bowls of brown,' 'sister's soup,' weirwood 'bole/bowl', etc....The fact that Edd imagines being an egg is also an obvious rebirth symbol.

Additionally, the idea of dying 'warm and drunk' is paradoxically the way a death by ice/snow is described in the Prologue. So 'wightification' -- or succumbing to the 'burning cold' -- is akin to drowning in boiling wine.

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A Game of Thrones - Prologue

The young knight turned back to his grizzled man-at-arms. Frost-fallen leaves whispered past them, and Royce's destrier moved restlessly. "What do you think might have killed these men, Gared?" Ser Waymar asked casually. He adjusted the drape of his long sable cloak.

"It was the cold," Gared said with iron certainty. "I saw men freeze last winter, and the one before, when I was half a boy. Everyone talks about snows forty foot deep, and how the ice wind comes howling out of the north, but the real enemy is the cold. It steals up on you quieter than Will, and at first you shiver and your teeth chatter and you stamp your feet and dream of mulled wine and nice hot fires. It burns, it does. Nothing burns like the cold. But only for a while. Then it gets inside you and starts to fill you up, and after a while you don't have the strength to fight it. It's easier just to sit down or go to sleep. They say you don't feel any pain toward the end. First you go weak and drowsy, and everything starts to fade, and then it's like sinking into a sea of warm milk. Peaceful, like."

"Such eloquence, Gared," Ser Waymar observed. "I never suspected you had it in you."

This is fantastic. You know we could connect the Arbor Gold, House Redwine and Gilbert of the Vines to the creation of wights then.  Edit: and I just realize Gilbert of the vines is a nod to the movie What's eating Gilbert Grape?

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

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"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).

On 1/31/2017 at 6:25 PM, ravenous reader said:
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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. 

That's interesting.

A few things I wanted to add. Sacrificing a Horned Lord combined with the wine/blood is seen in the use of using a horn as a drinking cup or more directly by Jogos Nhai using the gilded skull of Lo Bu (which to me sounds like lobo -wolf in Spanish), who was the God-Emperor of the Golden Empire of Yi Ti and was nicknamed Boy Too Bold by Half. And we have a few parallels for Lo Bu, the obvious one with the gilded skull is Viserys which is really a giant sign as Viserys was killed by a leader of nomadic tribe that rode horses. The gilded skull also connects the Golden Company with their pike of Golden Skulls and their motto "Beneath the Gold, the Bitter Steel" and is interesting if we lump in Dark Sister sitting inside of a skull at the bottom of the God's Eye and the Isle of Faces with their bloody tears, Skull Island in the Basilisk Isles and the fortress of Gogossos/Golgutha- "the place where the skull is" on the Isle of Tears. The second parallel is his nickname which conjures up Daeron the Young Dragon and for sake of further parallel Rob (and as he is the namesake of Robert Baratheon also paralleled Edward IV by marrying a woman who was on the side of the enemy. Not to mention that Elizabeth Woodville's mother's family believed that they are descended from a river goddess/witch and Jeyne has a witch great grandmother, who would perform blood magic. Maggy's extended parallel is Meria Martell, the yellow Toad of Dorne also descended via her ancestor Nymeria from the Rhyonar Mother River Goddess, Mother Rhoyne). 

I hope that made sense. And you know if we are going back to the parallels of sacrifice, the Golden Company, Beneath the Gold, the Bitter Steel and Golden Skulls, makes sense if we equate blood/wine, fire/knowledge and swords/dragons/comets to power. The golden drinking skull cup is a poisonous holy grail. 

On 1/31/2017 at 6:25 PM, ravenous reader said:

The other character who GRRM possibly configures as a Plantagenet is Tyrion (instead of Stannis) as the famous 'hunchback' Richard III, who Sir Thomas More described as "little of stature, ill-featured of limbs, crook-backed," which is certainly reminiscent of Tyrion's twisted disfigurement.  

I agree with Tyrion being another parallel to Richard III.

Spoiler

This  reminds me of the Tyrion monologue in the Mercy Chapter of WoW.

"Now I recall." Bobono lowered his voice to a sinister croak. "The seven-faced god has cheated me," he said. "My noble sire he made of purest gold, and gold he made my siblings, boy and girl. But I am formed of darker stuff, of bones and blood and clay, twisted into this rude shape you see before you." 

-Mercy, tWoW

But I do think that they are both a version of Richard III or at least another Richard, Richard "The Lion Heart". Tyrion regardless of his sire is still lion hearted and Stannis has the fiery heart sigil with a black stag embedded inside the heart. And if we include the white lion being killed by Drogo and think of it as a sacrifice (which Dany's thinks of it as giving her power) then both Tyrion and Stannis would be allusions to AA tempering Lightbringer in the heart of the lion during the second attempt. 

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On 1/31/2017 at 6:25 PM, ravenous reader said:

P.S.  By the way, you do know that the name 'Plantagenet' means 'broom' as in one of the meanings of the name 'Bran', in particular a 'sapling' or a 'gardener'...!  ;)

No I didn't know that. And we have Ser Benedict Broom being the Castellan of Casterly Rock parallel to Harlen Tyrell, the Steward of High Garden. And can I say that broom could also be broom as in the tool you use to sweep up dust and since Ser Benedict is a Castellan, he can be considered a broom. And Tyrion was at one time a tool for cleaning, specifically the bowels of Casterly Rock. And a broom were at one time made from the thorny plants named broom. 

And there is Alfred Broome, who betrayed Rhaenyra because he was slighted by not being named Castellan of Dragonstone. And its funny that his cloak was set on fire because I just see him running around like a broom on fire or better yet brooms are what witches ride. ;) And 'jumping over the broom' is a phrase that means getting married especially if the couple eloped. The phrase is tied to the French version that meant "marriage on the cross of the sword", a broomstick marriage was also the name for civil marriages in England during the 1800s. 

Edit: Besom the other word for broom was used in Scotland for a naughty child. 

On 1/31/2017 at 6:25 PM, ravenous reader said:

Hi PK, no need to apologize for your absence, though your presence is always valued (and missed when you're not available to contribute). :wub:  

Thank you I appreciate it. 

 

 

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And there was one girl who took to following her, the village elder's daughter. She was of an age with Arya, but just a child; she cried if she skinned a knee, and carried a stupid cloth doll with her everywhere she went. The doll was made up to look like a man-at-arms, sort of, so the girl called him Ser Soldier and bragged how he kept her safe.

- Arya XII, aSoS

Robert Arryn, Lord of the Eyrie, stood in the doorway, clutching a ragged cloth doll and looking at them with large eyes. He was a painfully thin child, small for his age and sickly all his days, and from time to time he trembled.

- Catelyn VI, aGoT

The wine has blurred my wits. He had learned to read High Valyrian at his maester's knee, though what they spoke in the Nine Free Cities … well, it was not so much a dialect as nine dialects on the way to becoming separate tongues. Tyrion had some Braavosi and a smattering of Myrish. In Tyrosh he should be able to curse the gods, call a man a cheat, and order up an ale, thanks to a sellsword he had once known at the Rock. At least in Dorne they speak the Common Tongue. Like Dornish food and Dornish law, Dornish speech was spiced with the flavors of the Rhoyne, but a man could comprehend it. Dorne, yes, Dorne for me. He crawled into his bunk, clutching that thought like a child with a doll.

Sleep had never come easily to Tyrion Lannister. Aboard that ship it seldom came at all, though from time to time he managed to drink sufficient wine to pass out for a while. At least he did not dream. He had dreamed enough for one small life. And of such follies: love, justice, friendship, glory. As well dream of being tall. 

- Tyrion I, aDwD

"Take him back to bed and leech him," the Lord Protector said, and the taller guardsman scooped the boy up in his arms. I could carry him myself, Alayne thought. He is no heavier than a doll.

......I bleed the child as often as I dare, and mix him dreamwine and milk of the poppy to help him sleep

-Alyane I, aFfC

Arya was wrenched off her feet. She would have fallen if he hadn't held her up, as easy as if she were a doll

-Arya V, aGoT

At the end of the alley stood a girl with a mass of golden curls, dressed as pretty as a doll in blue satin

-Ayra III, aGoT

Then they stole all the clothes that Lady Smallwood had given her and dressed her up like one of Sansa's dolls in linen and lace

-Arya V, aSoS 

Tyrion had no more strength than a rag doll.

-aCoK

Last of all, Margaery brought her before the wizened white-haired doll of a woman at the head of the table

-Sansa I, aSoS

Maester Luwin made a little boy of clay, baked him till he was hard and brittle, dressed him in Bran's clothes, and flung him off a roof. Bran remembered the way he shattered. "But I never fall," he said, falling.

The ground was so far below him he could barely make it out through the grey mists that whirled around him, but he could feel how fast he was falling, and he knew what was waiting for him down there. Even in dreams, you could not fall forever. He would wake up in the instant before he hit the ground, he knew. You always woke up in the instant before you hit the ground.

-Bran III, aGoT

Sandor Clegane lifted her onto Stranger's back as if she weighed no more than a doll.

-Arya IX, aSoS

Dacey Mormont, Lady Maege's eldest daughter and heir to Bear Island, a lanky six-footer who had been given a morningstar at an age when most girls were given dolls. 

-Catelyn X, aGoT

She collected scabs as other girls collect dolls, and would say anything that came into her head. 

-Catelyn VII, aCoK

"There are men who remember when you were a little girl, swimming naked in the sea and playing with your doll."

"I played with axes too."

-The Iron Captain, aFfC

"Did I not give you an army, sweetest of women? A thousand knights, each in shining armor."

The armor had been made of silver and gold, the knights of jade and beryl and onyx and tourmaline, of amber and opal and amethyst, each as tall as her little finger. "A thousand lovely knights," she said,

-Daenerys III, aCoK

He stood his doll in the snow and moved it jerkily. "Tromp tromp I'm a giant, I'm a giant," he chanted. "Ho ho ho, open your gates or I'll mash them and smash them." Swinging the doll by the legs, he knocked the top off one gatehouse tower and then the other.

It was more than Sansa could stand. "Robert, stop that." Instead he swung the doll again, and a foot of wall exploded. She grabbed for his hand but she caught the doll instead. There was a loud ripping sound as the thin cloth tore. Suddenly she had the doll's head, Robert had the legs and body, and the rag-and-sawdust stuffing was spilling in the snow.

- Sansa VII, aSoS

Ser Rodrik tugged at his whiskers. "Poison, well … that could be the dwarf's work, true enough. Or Cersei's. It's said poison is a woman's weapon, begging your pardons, my lady. The Kingslayer, now … I have no great liking for the man, but he's not the sort. Too fond of the sight of blood on that golden sword of his. Was it poison, my lady?"

Catelyn frowned, vaguely uneasy. "How else could they make it look a natural death?" Behind her, Lord Robert shrieked with delight as one of the puppet knights sliced the other in half, spilling a flood of red sawdust onto the terrace

-Catelyn VII, aGoT

The screaming had stopped by the time they came to Hardin's Tower, but Wun Weg Wun Dar Wun was still roaring. The giant was dangling a bloody corpse by one leg, the same way Arya used to dangle her doll when she was small, swinging it like a morningstar when menaced by vegetables. Arya never tore her dolls to pieces, though. The dead man's sword arm was yards away, the snow beneath it turning red.

-Jon XIII, aDwD

 Arya took the doll away from her, ripped it open, and pulled the rag stuffing out of its belly with a finger. "Now he really looks like a soldier!" she said, before she threw the doll in a brook. After that the girl stopped pestering her, and Arya spent her days grooming Craven and Stranger or walking in the woods. Sometimes she would find a stick and practice her needlework, but then she would remember what had happened at the Twins and smash it against a tree until it broke.

-Arya XII, aSoS

The winesellers and sausage makers were doing a brisk trade, a dancing bear was shuffling along to his master's playing as a singer sang "The Bear, the Bear, and the Maiden Fair," jugglers were juggling, and the puppeteers were just finishing another fight.

Dunk stopped to watch the wooden dragon slain. When the puppet knight cut its head off and the red sawdust spilled out onto the grass, he laughed aloud and threw the girl two coppers. "One for last night,"

-The Hedge Knight

The next man was a baker, accused of mixing sawdust in his flour. Lord Randyll fined him fifty silver stags. When the baker swore he did not have that much silver, his lordship declared that he could have a lash for every stag that he was short.

-Brienne III, aFfC

"Will you drink a horn of ale?" he asked the puppet girl as she was scooping the sawdust blood back into her dragon. "With me, I mean? Or a sausage? I had a sausage last night, and it was good. They're made with pork, I think."

- The Hedge Knight

As for the matter of these puppeteers, by the time Aerion is done twisting the tale it will be high treason. The dragon is the sigil of the royal House. To portray one being slain, sawdust blood spilling from its neck . . . well, it was doubtless innocent, but it was far from wise

-The Hedge Knight

The Dornishman's wife was as fair as the sun,

and her kisses were warmer than spring.

But the Dornishman's blade was made of black steel,

and its kiss was a terrible thing.

The Dornishman's wife would sing as she bathed,

in a voice that was sweet as a peach,

But the Dornishman's blade had a song of its own,

and a bite sharp and cold as a leech.

As he lay on the ground with the darkness around,

and the taste of his blood on his tongue,

His brothers knelt by him and prayed him a prayer,

and he smiled and he laughed and he sung,

"Brothers, oh brothers, my days here are done,

the Dornishman's taken my life,

But what does it matter, for all men must die,

and I've tasted the Dornishman's wife!"

-Jon I, aSoS

A little bisque doll and a little rag doll /

And a dolly imported from France /

Were sitting one day on the shelf of the store /

With a doll that could wind up and dance /

When all of a sudden, the shopkeeper heard /

A scream that rang out thro' the store /

And this was the plaint of the little bisque doll /

That made such an awful uproar

Chorus:

I've got a pain in my sawdust /

That's what's the matter with me /

Something is wrong with my little inside/

I'm just as sick as can be /

Don't let me faint, someone get me a fan /

Someone else run for the medicine man /

Ev'ryone hurry as fast as you can /

I've got a pain in my sawdust

Verse 2:

They took her away in a hospital van /

And the whole town was filled with the blues /

For ev'ryone thought it was quite an odd thing /

And the papers all printed the news /

The surgeons looked wise and they all shook their heads /

And asked her just where she was sick /

"I think it's 'appendi-sawdust'!", she exclaimed /

"And won't you please do something quick?"

Chorus Repeat

Verse 3:

Oh, sad was the day for the little bisque doll /

For they cut all her stitches away /

and found the seat of the terrible ache /

"'Twas a delicate task," they all say /

For none of the surgeons had ever before /

Performed on a dolly's inside /

They tried to re-stuff her but didn't know how /

And this was her wail as she died

Chorus Repeat (spoken, expressively)

"Funeral March" bridge

Sung:

She had a pain in her sawdust.

 

 

This song was also sung by Tiny Tim a musician, another Tiny Tim in "A Christmas Carol" was also a broken little boy. 

Gregor/Ser Robert Strong is also a twisted child's doll knight, so are the Snowmen built by the squires, the Scarecrow Watchmen, and I would say with the amount of references to broken child's toys, I could see the Others as dolls as well or golems. 

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On 2/1/2017 at 2:28 PM, ravenous reader said:

Welcome to our poetry thread @aDanceWithFlagons, and thank you for that illuminating contribution!  :)

I'm reminded of the curious dialectic surrounding Winterfell as both a home and a prison of sorts, from which Bran seeks to free himself, albeit reluctantly.  There are other 'prisons' besides, for example the cage of a body which imprisons a crippled child eager to climb over walls, and the mind's eye of a greenseer calling to be unshuttered:

 

Hey, ravenous! Good references to Bran's lot in life. From the beginning Bran loomed for an escape through climbing. He could run and climb and see Winterfell as no one else could see it. His contentment came through a mixture of confinement and freedom of exploration of his home. After the great fall and prolonged unconsciousness Bran came close to complete release, or freedom, from his body, and that almost killed him. His body along with Summer's is what held (or tethered) him to the living world. Without that anchor, Bran would have been drifted away, or fallen away, from the living world. Similar to Varamyr when he began drifting on a cold wind until his wolf tether pulled him in. I believe that's how the skinchangers and greenseers and Others and third-eye-users operate. They need an anchor to hold them in the living world while traversing the "underworld." A.k.a second lives. Death for life and all that but there are those that cheat death for a time. Some a long time and some a short. (Daenerys also experiences this through her dragon dreams, funeral pyre,  and visit with the Undying.)

Currently Bran has the ultimate freedom to explore the universe while in the Singers cave. It's THE greatest escape. Here's hoping that he will once again escape his mole hole to see the sun. Cheers!

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I was a listener in the woods,

I was a gazer at the stars,

I was not blind where secrets were concerned,

I was silent in a wilderness,

I was talkative among many,

I was mild in the mead-hall,

I was stern in battle,

I was gentle towards allies,

I was a physician of the sick,

I was weak towards the feeble,

I was strong towards the powerful,

I was not parsimonious lest I should be burdensome,

I was not arrogant though I was wise,

I was not given to vain promises though I was strong,

I was not unsafe though I was swift,

I did not deride the old though I was young,

I was not boastful though I was a good fighter,

I would not speak about anyone in their absence,

I would not reproach, but I would praise,

I would not ask, but I would give.

 

Cormac Mac Cuileannain

King and Poet of Cashel, AD 836 - 908

:)

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1 hour ago, YOVMO said:

I have to agree with @ravenous reader here. 

 

This here is exactly right. Authors die, literature is alive and well. One example I like to use is to think of the last words of Socrates. He says "Crito, we owe a cock to Asclepius" 

This seems odd. One might think he simply made a mistake and meant hermes as he was sentenced to death, at least in part, for one of his students knocking the units off of some Hermes statues around athens. Maybe he wanted some kind of cock replacement program to honor his death. Nietzsche, in the Gaya Scientia (1887) points out that sacrificing a cock to asclepius, however, is what one does when they get better from an illness. So, in essence, according to Nietzsche what Socrates is saying is that life, mortal life, is an illness and death is actually the cure, becoming pure spirit again. That sounds pretty good right? But think of where we are. 130 years, 2 world wars, mainstream existentialism and nihilism, a world almost totally bereft of god and sure, Nietzsche's answer makes sense. However, when Nietzsche said it this was after 2 millennia of other people reading this and Nietzsche's ideas were considered interesting, if not groundbreaking when he said them.

So for 2000 years people what? just skipped over socrates' last words as if they didn't matter? Of course not. They had other ideas for what they meant --ideas that reflected the values, morals, thinking, weltgeist and general field of vision from their own time. What did Plato actually mean when he wrote them or Socrates actually mean when he said them (if he even did)....who the hell knows. But more than who the hell knows -- IT DOESN'T MATTER. It simply does not matter. The dialogue are a living set of documents interpreted over and over with each successive generation of academics from the standpoint of people who have all the former theories at their disposal.

Think about the bible even. Billions of pages on paper about what the bible means, or shakespeare or James Joyce or Dostoyevsky what did the authors mean? It is impossible to guess which means it is simply not interesting. So take one of my favorite characters, The Hound. I see the hound as a romantic. He was a child who played with toy knights. He wants a song from Sansa...not a kiss, a song. The Hound is a beautiful and tragic figure who was a dreamer who had visions of chivalry but faced harsh abuse and had his dreams turned to ash but now and then they pop out....there is still the spark of the boy who played with his brothers toy knight in his heart. Did George intend the Hound to be this character? Not yes. Not no. The answer is, it does not matter and it is not interesting. This is why I generally avoid the SSM. I don't really care what spake martin most of the time. There is the text of the book and that is what matters.

All documents, as Derrida points out, are alive. Want proof, read the Constitution. Article I Section 2 Paragraph 3

"Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons."

Three fifths of all other persons. That would be african americans. We are in a more evolved time now when we can all look at this and say it is absurd, but there it is in the constitution and we are still counting black people as a full person today instead of 3/5 because the document has evolved its meaning over time to suit a new age.

Hopefully Martin will finish the entire song of ice and fire and then those books will be read and discussed and analyzed for years, centuries maybe. And how we see these stories will be, as they always are, a reflection of the reader, not of the author.

 

Oh using Heidegger here is so deadly dangerous. In the origin of the work of art heidegger is trying to agree with the methodology of Nietzsche laid out, fragmentary as it is, in the Will to Power while avoiding the conclusion that Art is more important than Truth. Because of this, Heidegger makes so many shoehorn sidesteps with logic that he might as well be arguing that dasein is a secret targaryen. In this very book, Heidegger says about Van Gogh's painting Shoes

From the dark opening of the worn insides of the shoes the toilsome tread of the worker stares forth. In the stiffly rugged heaviness of the shoes there is the accumulated tenacity of her slow trudge through the far-spreading and ever-uniform furrows of the field swept by a raw wind. On the leather lie the dampness and richness of the soil. Under the soles slides the loneliness of the field-path as evening falls. In the shoes vibrates the silent call of the earth, its quiet gift of the ripening grain and its unexplained self-refusal in the fallow desolation of the wintry field. This equipment is pervaded by uncomplaining anxiety as to the certainty of bread, the wordless joy of having once more withstood want, the trembling before the impending childbed and shivering at the surrounding menace of death. This equipment belongs to the earth, and it is protected in the world of the peasant woman. From out of this protected belonging the equipment itself rises to its resting-within-itself.

 

In reality the shoes Van the man is painting are his own. Does that make Heidegger's interpretation "wrong" in some way? Of course not. That would be absurd. The art is simply there to occasion a moment of clarity into the self, not into the artist. How you read ASOIAF has more to do with you than it does with Martin. Remember, the hermeneutic circle does not exist to unlock some kind of secret hidden in the book by the author, but unlock some secret about the world and about your soul which is hidden not in the text but in the act of conducting an exegesis on it.

Thanks @YOVMO.  I'm reminded of the following poem, which not only reflects the philosophy of literature interpretation you've discussed, but also simultaneously reflects GRRM's own poetic vision, namely that a word is the ultimate sword! (and conversely explains why swords frequently do the 'speaking', even when their wielders appear mute, e.g. Ilyn Payne).  Stevens like GRRM asks us to consider, what exactly is this 'language of leviathan' we imagine we're hearing and seeing in the 'sea'...

.

The Idea of Order at Key West

Wallace Stevens, 1879 - 1955

She sang beyond the genius of the sea.
The water never formed to mind or voice,
Like a body wholly body, fluttering
Its empty sleeves; and yet its mimic motion
Made constant cry, caused constantly a cry,
That was not ours although we understood,
Inhuman, of the veritable ocean.

The sea was not a mask.  No more was she.
The song and water were not medleyed sound
Even if what she sang was what she heard.
Since what she sang was uttered word by word.
It may be that in all her phrases stirred
The grinding water and the gasping wind;
But it was she and not the sea we heard.

For she was the maker of the song she sang.
The ever-hooded, tragic-gestured sea
Was merely a place by which she walked to sing.
Whose spirit is this?  we said, because we knew
It was the spirit that we sought and knew
That we should ask this often as she sang.

If it was only the dark voice of the sea
That rose, or even colored by many waves;
If it was only the outer voice of sky
And cloud, of the sunken coral water-walled,
However clear, it would have been deep air,
The heaving speech of air, a summer sound
Repeated in a summer without end
And sound alone.  But it was more than that,
More even than her voice, and ours, among
The meaningless plungings of water and the wind,
Theatrical distances, bronze shadows heaped
On high horizons, mountainous atmospheres
Of sky and sea.
                      It was her voice that made
The sky acutest at its vanishing.
She measured to the hour its solitude.
She was the single artificer of the world
In which she sang.  And when she sang, the sea,
Whatever self it had, became the self
That was her song, for she was the maker.  Then we,
As we beheld her striding there alone,
Knew that there never was a world for her
Except the one she sang and, singing, made.

Ramon Fernandez, tell me, if you know,
Why, when the singing ended and we turned
Toward the town, tell why the glassy lights,
The lights in the fishing boats at anchor there,
As night descended, tilting in the air,
Mastered the night and portioned out the sea,
Fixing emblazoned zones and fiery poles,
Arranging, deepening, enchanting night.

Oh!  Blessed rage for order, pale Ramon,
The maker’s rage to order words of the sea,
Words of the fragrant portals, dimly-starred,
And of ourselves and of our origins,
In ghostlier demarcations, keener sounds.

 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Our Last Summer, ABBA:

The summer air was
Soft and warm
The feeling right
The Paris night
Did its best to please us
And strolling down
The Elysee
We had a drink in each café
And you
You talked of politics
Philosophy and I
Smiled like Mona Lisa
We had our chance
It was a fine and true
Romance

I can still recall
Our last summer
I still see it all

Walks along the Seine
Laughing in the rain
Our last summer
Memories that remain


We made our way
Along the river
And we sat down
In the grass
By the Eiffel tower
I was so happy we had met
It was the age of no regret
Oh yes
Those crazy years
That was the time
Of the flower power
But underneath
We had a fear of flying
Of getting old
A fear of slowly dying

We took the chance
Like we were dancing
Our last dance

I can still recall
Our last summer
I still see it all
In the tourist jam
’Round the Notre Dame
Our last summer
Walking hand in hand
Paris restaurants
Our last summer
Morning croissants
Living for the day
Worries far away
Our last summer
We could laugh
And play

And now you’re working
In a bank
The family man
A football fan
And your name is Harry
How dull it seems
Yet you’re the hero
Of my dreams

I can still recall
Our last summer
I still see it all
Walks along the Seine
Laughing in the rain
Our last summer
Memories that remain
I can still recall
Our last summer
I still see it all
In the tourist jam
’Round the Notre Dame
Our last summer
Walking hand in hand
Paris restaurants
Our last summer
Morning croissants
Living for the day
Worries far away
Our last summer
We could laugh
And play

 

Bran, Summer, fear of flying and dying, flower (weirwood?) power... 

That was the time
Of the flower power
But underneath
We had a fear of flying
Of getting old
A fear of slowly dying 

this reminds me of Bloodraven and Bran's visions of The Three Eyed Crow.

Our last summer
Memories that remain

and this of Bran's fate should his boy body die.

 

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Inverno

È notte, inverno rovinoso. 
Un poco sollevi le tendine, e guardi. 
Vibrano i tuoi capelli, selvaggi, 
la gioia ti dilata improvvisa l'occhio nero; 
che quello che hai veduto 
- era un'immagine della fine del mondo - 
ti conforta l'intimo cuore, lo fa caldo e pago. 
Un uomo si avventura per un lago 
di ghiaccio, sotto una lampada storta.

Umberto Saba

In English there are 2 versions (I prefer the first one):

 

WINTER

It's night – ruinous winter. A little

you raise the blinds, and you look. Your wild

hair quivers, unexpected

joy widens your dark eyes;

since what you have seen — it was an image

of the end of the world — comforts the deepest

part of your heart, makes it hot and pleased.

 

A man is venturing over a lake

of ice under a twisted lantern.

 

WINTER

It’s night, a bitter winter. You raise
the drapes a little and peer out. Your hair
blows wildly; joy suddenly
opens wide your black eyes,
and what you saw—it was an image
of the world’s end—comforts
your inmost heart, warms and eases it.

A man ventures out on a lake
of ice, under a crooked streetlamp.

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On 2/22/2017 at 2:33 PM, Blue Tiger said:

Our Last Summer, ABBA:

The summer air was
Soft and warm
The feeling right
The Paris night
Did its best to please us
And strolling down
The Elysee
We had a drink in each café
And you
You talked of politics
Philosophy and I
Smiled like Mona Lisa
We had our chance
It was a fine and true
Romance

I can still recall
Our last summer
I still see it all

Walks along the Seine
Laughing in the rain
Our last summer
Memories that remain


We made our way
Along the river
And we sat down
In the grass
By the Eiffel tower
I was so happy we had met
It was the age of no regret
Oh yes
Those crazy years
That was the time
Of the
flower power
But underneath
We had a fear of flying
Of getting old
A fear of slowly dying

We took the chance
Like we were dancing
Our last dance

I can still recall
Our last summer
I still see it all
In the tourist jam
’Round the Notre Dame
Our last summer
Walking hand in hand
Paris restaurants
Our last summer
Morning croissants
Living for the day
Worries far away
Our last summer
We could laugh
And play

And now you’re working
In a bank
The family man
A football fan
And your name is Harry
How dull it seems
Yet you’re the hero
Of my dreams

I can still recall
Our last summer
I still see it all
Walks along the Seine
Laughing in the rain
Our last summer
Memories that remain
I can still recall
Our last summer
I still see it all
In the tourist jam
’Round the Notre Dame
Our last summer
Walking hand in hand
Paris restaurants
Our last summer
Morning croissants
Living for the day
Worries far away
Our last summer
We could laugh
And play

 

Bran, Summer, fear of flying and dying, flower (weirwood?) power..

That was the time
Of the flower power
But underneath
We had a fear of flying
Of getting old
A fear of slowly dying 

this reminds me of Bloodraven and Bran's visions of The Three Eyed Crow.

Our last summer
Memories that remain

and this of Bran's fate should his boy body die.

 

ABBA -- brilliant!  Who would have thought those icy-slick Swedish crooners would have some relation to ASOIAF (but, then again...you never know what goes on in Sweden...;))

'The age of no regret...'  Niebieski, you're young and given to a certain melancholy -- yet, you'll see, you're living the best years of your life now (and you don't even know it...) -- 'the age of regret' comes later ...

The 'flower power' makes me sad, thinking of how Bran longs for a romance of his own, yet he's capitulated and accepted this lackluster 'marriage to the tree' (or to the succubus of the nennymoans), this fate he doesn't really want:

Quote

A Dance with Dragons - Bran III

Bran did want to be married to a tree … but who else would wed a broken boy like him? A thousand eyes, a hundred skins, wisdom deep as the roots of ancient trees. A greenseer.

 

Quote

A Dance with Dragons - Bran II

Bran backed away, bleeding, and Meera Reed was there, driving her frog spear deep into the wight's back. "Hodor," Bran roared again, waving her uphill. "Hodor, hodor." Jojen was twisting feebly where she'd laid him down. Bran went to him, dropped the longsword, gathered the boy into Hodor's arm, and lurched back to his feet. "HODOR!" he bellowed.

Meera led the way back up the hill, jabbing at the wights when they came near. The things could not be hurt, but they were slow and clumsy. "Hodor," Hodor said with every step. "Hodor, hodor." He wondered what Meera would think if he should suddenly tell her that he loved her.

 

For you @Blue Tiger:

 
Labour is blossoming or dancing where 
The body is not bruised to pleasure soul, 
Nor beauty born out of its own despair, 
Nor blear-eyed wisdom out of midnight oil. 
O chestnut tree, great rooted blossomer, 
Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bole? 
O body swayed to music, O brightening glance, 
How can we know the dancer from the dance?
 
-- William Butler Yeats (excerpt taken from his poem 'Among School Children')

 

 

And the following poem/song by Nick Cave is for @Pain killer Jane and @LmL, who understand.

--  I've been meditating on your Icarus, Lyra, Vega, Orpheus discussion...P.S.  I think Seams has previously identified the lyre:liar pun, which is quite apt in the context of harps and bards opening up the path to the otherworld--

(and also for @Dorian Martell's son whom I not without a certain affection call 'Dorian the Difficult,' since it's also important in life to converse with people with whom one doesn't have a natural understanding; and who rattles me no end by steadfastly refusing to acknowledge the significance of the poetic 'rustle' that can crack open the firmament and upend the natural order of the universe!)

First a few quotes from ASOIAF:

Quote

A Game of Thrones - Prologue

Will could feel it. Four years in the Night's Watch, and he had never been so afraid. What was it?

"Wind. Trees rustling. A wolf. Which sound is it that unmans you so, Gared?"

 

A Clash of Kings - Davos II

"Yes. Beneath. But we can go no farther. The portcullis goes all the way to the bottom. And the bars are too closely spaced for even a child to squeeze through."

There was no answer but a soft rustling. And then a light bloomed amidst the darkness.

Davos raised a hand to shield his eyes, and his breath caught in his throat. Melisandre had thrown back her cowl and shrugged out of the smothering robe. Beneath, she was naked, and huge with child. Swollen breasts hung heavy against her chest, and her belly bulged as if near to bursting. "Gods preserve us," he whispered, and heard her answering laugh, deep and throaty. Her eyes were hot coals, and the sweat that dappled her skin seemed to glow with a light of its own. Melisandre shone.

 

A Clash of Kings - Bran II

"Fly or die!" cried the three-eyed crow as it pecked at him. He wept and pleaded but the crow had no pity. It put out his left eye and then his right, and when he was blind in the dark it pecked at his brow, driving its terrible sharp beak deep into his skull. He screamed until he was certain his lungs must burst. The pain was an axe splitting his head apart, but when the crow wrenched out its beak all slimy with bits of bone and brain, Bran could see again. What he saw made him gasp in fear. He was clinging to a tower miles high, and his fingers were slipping, nails scrabbling at the stone, his legs dragging him down, stupid useless dead legs. "Help me!" he cried. A golden man appeared in the sky above him and pulled him up. "The things I do for love," he murmured softly as he tossed him out kicking into empty air.

 

A Clash of Kings - Jon VII

Then a sudden gust of cold made his fur stand up, and the air thrilled to the sound of wings. As he lifted his eyes to the ice-white mountain heights above, a shadow plummeted out of the sky. A shrill scream split the air. He glimpsed blue-grey pinions spread wide, shutting out the sun . . .

 

A Clash of Kings - Jon VIII

"Ghost, to me," Jon called. The direwolf returned reluctantly to his side, tail held stiffly behind him.

The wildlings came boiling over a ridge not half a mile away. Their hounds ran before them, snarling grey-brown beasts with more than a little wolf in their blood. Ghost bared his teeth, his fur bristling. "Easy," Jon murmured. "Stay." Overhead he heard a rustle of wings. The eagle landed on an outcrop of rock and screamed in triumph.

 

A Storm of Swords - Samwell III

Sam made a whimpery sound. "It's not fair . . ."

"Fair." The raven landed on his shoulder. "Fair, far, fear." It flapped its wings, and screamed along with Gilly. The wights were almost on her. He heard the dark red leaves of the weirwood rustling, whispering to one another in a tongue he did not know. The starlight itself seemed to stir, and all around them the trees groaned and creaked. Sam Tarly turned the color of curdled milk, and his eyes went wide as plates. Ravens! They were in the weirwood, hundreds of them, thousands, perched on the bone-white branches, peering between the leaves. He saw their beaks open as they screamed, saw them spread their black wings. Shrieking, flapping, they descended on the wights in angry clouds. They swarmed round Chett's face and pecked at his blue eyes, they covered the Sisterman like flies, they plucked gobbets from inside Hake's shattered head. There were so many that when Sam looked up, he could not see the moon.

 

A Feast for Crows - The Drowned Man

Shouts of "Asha!" and "Victarion!" surged back and forth, and it seemed as though some savage storm was about to engulf them all. The Storm God is amongst us, the priest thought, sowing fury and discord.

Sharp as a swordthrust, the sound of a horn split the air.

Bright and baneful was its voice, a shivering hot scream that made a man's bones seem to thrum within him. The cry lingered in the damp sea air: aaaaRREEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

 

 

"The Lyre Of Orpheus"
 

Orpheus sat gloomy in his garden shed
Wondering what to do
With a lump of wood, a piece of wire
And a little pot of glue
O Mamma O Mamma

He sawed at the wood with half a heart
And glued it top to bottom
He strung a wire in between
He was feeling something rotten
O Mamma O Mamma

Orpheus looked at his instrument
And he gave the wire a pluck
He heard a sound so beautiful
He gasped and said O my God
O Mamma O Mamma

He rushed inside to tell his wife
He went racing down the halls
Eurydice was still asleep in bed
Like a sack of cannonballs
O Mamma O Mamma

Look what I've made, cried Orpheus
And he plucked a gentle note
Eurydice's eyes popped from their sockets
And her tongue burst through her throat
O Mamma O Mamma

O God, what have I done, he said
As her blood pooled in the sheets
But in his heart he felt a bliss
With which nothing could compete
O Mamma O Mamma

Orpheus went leaping through the fields
Strumming as hard as he did please
Birdies detonated in the sky
Bunnies dashed their brains out on the trees
O Mamma O Mamma

Orpheus strummed till his fingers bled
He hit a G minor 7
He woke up God from a deep, deep sleep
God was a major player in heaven
O Mamma O Mamma

God picked up a giant hammer
And He threw it with an thunderous yell
It smashed down hard on Orpheus' head
And knocked him down a well
O Mamma O Mamma

The well went down very deep
Very deep went down the well
The well went down so very deep
Well, the well went down to hell
O Mamma O Mamma

Poor Orpheus woke up with a start
All amongst the rotting dead
His lyre tacked safe under his arm
His brains all down his head
O Mamma O Mamma

Eurydice appeared brindled in blood
And she said to Orpheus
If you play that fucking thing down here
I'll stick it up your orifice!
O Mamma O Mamma

This lyre lark is for the birds, said Orpheus
It's enough to send you bats
Let's stay down here, Eurydice, dear
And we'll have a bunch of screaming brats
O Mamma O Mamma

Orpheus picked up his lyre for the last time
He was on a real low down bummer
And stared deep into the abyss and said
This one is for Mamma

O Mamma O Mamma
O Mamma O Mamma


NICK CAVE AND THE BAD SEEDS
 
 
 

 

 

'The well went down very deep
Very deep went down the well
The well went down so very deep
Well, the well went down to hell
O Mamma O Mamma'

 

On 2/22/2017 at 6:11 PM, Cridefea said:

Inverno

È notte, inverno rovinoso. 
Un poco sollevi le tendine, e guardi. 
Vibrano i tuoi capelli, selvaggi, 
la gioia ti dilata improvvisa l'occhio nero

che quello che hai veduto 
- era un'immagine della fine del mondo - 
ti conforta l'intimo cuore, lo fa caldo e pago.
 
Un uomo si avventura per un lago 
di ghiaccio, sotto una lampada storta.

Umberto Saba

In English there are 2 versions (I prefer the first one):

 

WINTER

It's night – ruinous winter. A little

you raise the blinds, and you look. Your wild

hair quivers, unexpected

joy widens your dark eyes;

since what you have seen — it was an image

of the end of the world — comforts the deepest

part of your heart, makes it hot and pleased.

 

A man is venturing over a lake

of ice under a twisted lantern.

 

WINTER

It’s night, a bitter winter. You raise
the drapes a little and peer out. Your hair
blows wildly; joy suddenly
opens wide your black eyes,
and what you saw—it was an image
of the world’s end—comforts
your inmost heart, warms and eases it.

A man ventures out on a lake
of ice, under a crooked streetlamp.

Hi @Cridefea -- my fellow Jaime-Brienne 'shipper' :wub:.  Welcome to our poetry thread, and thank you for introducing us to that enigmatic Italian gem of a poem!  I love when people from all different countries and backgrounds can come together and share a little bit of their culture with each other.

What's your opinion about what it was exactly of what the speaker of the poem saw out the window which comforted / warmed his or her heart in the deep winter?  (by the way, I like that idea in ASOIAF of the 'heart of winter' paradoxically being fire!)

 

My favourite Italian poem:

“Ognuno sta solo sul cuor della terra
trafitto da un raggio di sole:
ed e subito sera

Everyone stands alone at the heart of the world,
pierced by a ray of sunlight, 
and suddenly it’s evening”


 Salvatore Quasimodo, Tutte le poesie

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21 minutes ago, ravenous reader said:

 

 

Hi @Cridefea -- my fellow Jaime-Brienne 'shipper' :wub:.  Welcome to our poetry thread, and thank you for introducing us to that enigmatic Italian gem of a poem!  I love when people from all different countries and backgrounds can come together and share a little bit of their culture with each other.

 

Thank you! I really love to discover poetry, songs, stories from different places and in different languages. 

Ed è subito sera is one of my favorite poem, too.

For Inverno,  it was a huge snowstorm in Trieste. The poet watches a woman who sees a man through the storm. I think it rapresents hope,  even in terrible time there are people who try to go through the storm. Even if he walks on ice,  an unsteady ground. The lantern enables to see, it is fire, light and knowledge (I also like the lantern symbol in other works). As for the woman, I don't know if she is good or a bit evil. :P 

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19 hours ago, ravenous reader said:

And the following poem/song by Nick Cave is for @Pain killer Jane and @LmL, who understand.

--  I've been meditating on your Icarus, Lyra, Vega, Orpheus discussion...P.S.  I think Seams has previously identified the lyre:liar pun, which is quite apt in the context of harps and bards opening up the path to the otherworld--

Absolutely fantastic song. Very nicely package for the symbolism.

Here is a quote in relation to that.

Quote

Only Lord Gormon remained upon the roof with Dunk. "Hedge knight," he growled, "did your mother never teach you not to reach your hand into the dragon's mouth?"

"I never knew any mother, m'lord."

"That would explain it. What did he promise you?"

"A lordship. A white cloak. Big blue wings."

"Here's my promise: three feet of cold steel through your belly if you speak a word of what just happened."

-The Mystery Knight

 

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This song conjures up a roster of the dead and the doomed every time I hear it.

"Who By Fire"
Leonard Cohen

And who by fire, who by water,
who in the sunshine, who in the night time,
who by high ordeal, who by common trial,
who in your merry merry month of may,
who by very slow decay,
and who shall I say is calling?
And who in her lonely slip, who by barbiturate,
who in these realms of love, who by something blunt,
and who by avalanche, who by powder,
who for his greed, who for his hunger,
and who shall I say is calling?

And who by brave assent, who by accident,
who in solitude, who in this mirror,
who by his lady's command, who by his own hand,
who in mortal chains, who in power,
and who shall I say is calling?

 

 

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On 2/24/2017 at 10:12 PM, hiemal said:
This song conjures up a roster of the dead and the doomed every time I hear it.

"Who By Fire"
Leonard Cohen

And who by fire, who by water,
who in the sunshine, who in the night time,
who by high ordeal, who by common trial,
who in your merry merry month of may,
who by very slow decay,
and who shall I say is calling?
And who in her lonely slip, who by barbiturate,
who in these realms of love, who by something blunt,
and who by avalanche, who by powder,
who for his greed, who for his hunger,
and who shall I say is calling?

And who by brave assent, who by accident,
who in solitude, who in this mirror,
who by his lady's command, who by his own hand,
who in mortal chains, who in power,
and who shall I say is calling?

 

 

 

To which I can only answer with:

 

"Heart With No Companion" (Leonard Cohen)
 

I greet you from the other side 
Of sorrow and despair 
With a love so vast and shattered 
It will reach you everywhere 
And I sing this for the captain 
Whose ship has not been built 
For the mother in confusion 
Her cradle still unfilled 

For the heart with no companion 
For the soul without a king 
For the prima ballerina 
Who cannot dance to anything 

Through the days of shame that are coming 
Through the nights of wild distress 
Tho' your promise count for nothing 
You must keep it nonetheless 

You must keep it for the captain 
Whose ship has not been built 
For the mother in confusion 
Her cradle still unfilled 

For the heart with no companion ... 

I greet you from the other side ...

 

 

'Through the days of shame that are coming 
Through the nights of wild distress 
Tho' your promise count for nothing 
You must keep it nonetheless ...'

--  Oathkeeper.

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On 2/24/2017 at 11:41 AM, Pain killer Jane said:
Quote

Only Lord Gormon remained upon the roof with Dunk. "Hedge knight," he growled, "did your mother never teach you not to reach your hand into the dragon's mouth?"

"I never knew any mother, m'lord."

"That would explain it. What did he promise you?"

"A lordship. A white cloak. Big blue wings."

"Here's my promise: three feet of cold steel through your belly if you speak a word of what just happened."

-The Mystery Knight

 

@ravenous reader @LmL

So my husband, just enlightened me to something interesting. In the military, a blue falcon is a person that fucks over his buddy, a backstabber. I think that is what we are meant to see when Dunk says that Daemon II promised big blue wings and when Lysa sent the note barring the blue falcon of House Arryn. I think we will need to revisit the Arryn's honor in terms of the mother of pearl moon it is coupled with. 

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53 minutes ago, Pain killer Jane said:

@ravenous reader @LmL

So my husband, just enlightened me to something interesting. In the military, a blue falcon is a person that fucks over his buddy, a backstabber. I think that is what we are meant to see when Dunk says that Daemon II promised big blue wings and when Lysa sent the note barring the blue falcon of House Arryn. I think we will need to revisit the Arryn's honor in terms of the mother of pearl moon it is coupled with. 

Daemon wanted to "back-stab" Dunk alright... heh heh heh...

Kidding aside though, that's a discovery with potential. The main thing Lysa did was fuck her sister over about as hard as one can fuck somebody over. 

The important thing is how this idea relates to the Others. All of the icy moon symbolism about ultimately refers to the Others, I am fairly certain. There's this running idea that the Nights Watch Brothers and the others are kind of like estranged Brothers. They're both Watchers, black shadows and white shadows, black swords white swords comma on and on. It makes you think of the Night's King, someone who I believe was making others, and someone who was definitely treacherous against his brothers, according to legend.

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