A Burning Brandon (Mythical Astronomy of Ice and Fire)

[Pain killer Jane]

3 hours ago, LmL said:

I have to say, none of this is making any sense to me tonight. There's a bit too much wordplay seven degrees of separation here, I'm just not comfortable with that kind of analysis. Perhaps it will make sense if you explain it, but your thoughts are moving very fast here and I am not keeping up, sorry to say. How did Donal Noye become Tyr? What does this have to do with swamps now?  LoL. You need to walk me through it a bit. I mean, I do that for everyone else, don't I? One step at a time, so I can follow your brilliance. Right now I am just confused. 

Donal Noye is GRRM's clever back tracking etymology for the name Delano. Franklin Delano Roosevelt is one of the most influential American Presidents and he was also wheel chair bound and worked hard for that knowledge to not be made public because he didn't want his disability to be seen as a weakness especially since he was working to get America out of the Great Depression and leading America through WWII. The appearance of the name Delena in association with Tyrion famous for his love of cripples, bastards and broken things, prompted me to look up the etymology of Delano.

I found that Delano is a corruption of the French surname De La Noye which its breaks down into De La 'from the' + Noye "Swamp/wetland". Then I considered Donal Noye in his imagery. He is one armed like the god Tyr (notice the association with Tyr-ion) but he dies in combat against a giant. This isn't a one to one correlation with Thor, who is destined to be killed in combat with Jormungandr, the world snake but if we take Mag the mighty to be a Frost Giant then we should understand it to be Ragnarok. But Donal Noye is a blacksmith, like the deformed god Hephaestus, which is the god that I left out. This is why I said that Donal Noye is like Tyr and Thor.

'Coming from the swamp' is significant because the people even more connected with greenseers than the Starks, are the Crannogmen of the Neck, a swampy marshy wetland. And right next to this swamp land is Moat Cailin, where apparently the Children brought down the Hammer of the Waters. 

I hope that helps with that part. 

[Bluetiger]

1 hour ago, LmL said:

So I wonder why he marries the Night's Queen?

Styr is Sigron's father and Sigorn was the one to marry Alys.

Hmm... That Barnstokkr story reference?

[Pain killer Jane]

On 2/22/2017 at 11:14 PM, LmL said:

This I follow. Pennytree lies directly between the Teats - Barbra's or Missy's, depending on who you ask. Right in the breast, in other words, and Ser Arlan's Winged Chalice sigil is the fire of the gods in grail form. I've been wondering about the pennies... although now I recall copper pennies are also called copper stars, so the Pennytree is really a star tree, right between the tits, and yes, it would make a good conductor, wouldn't it? Of course Dunk himself is a star tree type of guy as well. 

Since we did talk about this the other day, I went back to see if I could find something else connected with pennies and I found this about Penny, Tyrion's companion. 

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Whilst the ship's cook still gave Tyrion's head a rub from time to time, in hopes that it might stir a wind, the rest had taken to giving him venomous looks whenever he crossed their paths. Penny's lot was even worse, since the cook had put about the notion that squeezing a dwarf girl's breast might be just the thing to win their luck back.

You pointed out back in your Tyrion Targaryen essay that one of the associations between Tyrion and the gargoyles was because he gets his head rubbed. And then I thought that referring to Tyrion being lucky and then following it with a sentence puts Penny in with 'lot', 'luck, makes the association that Penny is supposed to be considered a Lucky Penny. And since according to the Cook her luck is in her breast, that associates her with the Pennytree in between the tits. 

So I went through the significance of lucky pennies as it relates to the series. Being struck by lightning and living through it is supposed to be lucky just like being shit on by a bird, which by the way does happens to Tyrion and to the same gargoyles Davos rubs for good luck. Aside from the lightning struck tree and its associated broken sword parallel, we have a very significant story about a lucky outcome from lightning striking someone. That is the origin story for House Dondarrion. 

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"I remember your father telling the camp how your house got its sigil. One stormy night, as the first of your line bore a message across the Dornish Marches, an arrow killed his horse beneath him and spilled him on the ground. Two Dornishmen came out of the darkness in ring mail and crested helms. His sword had broken beneath him when he fell.

When he saw that, he thought he was doomed. But as the Dornishmen closed to cut him down, lightning cracked from the sky. It was a bright burning purple, and it split, striking the Dornishmen in their steel and killing them both where they stood. The message gave the Storm King victory over the Dornish, and in thanks he raised the messenger to lordship. He was the first Lord Dondarrion, so he took for his arms a forked purple lightning bolt, on a black field powdered with stars."

-The Hedge Knight

This tale is told by Dunk, the squire of Ser Arlan of Pennytree. So I thought, the luck associated with this incident and the luck associated with Penny, the dwarf would have to be associated. And so I looked for more word associations, If you notice the Dondarrion tale is in the HEDGE Knight as in the adage, "Hedge your bets" which means to support more than one outcome to improve the odds that the outcome will be favorable towards you and should also be associated with the adage of "Placing all of one's EGGs in the same basket." 

So Penny as a female and her association with luck, would mean that she is a Lady Luck. Lady Luck is the modern way in which we refer to the Roman Goddess Fortuna and her Greek counterpart Tyche. As I mentioned, she is often depicted as veiled or blindfold. Being blindfold leads me to think of Red star eyes being ripped out which is the association of Lady Stoneheart as a corrupted Lady Justice. Which in life she was a red headed woman, and is therefore another link to luck because she is kissed by fire and the Wildings believe they are lucky. 

This association with red hair women and in relation to Catelyn brought to mind this quote 

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Sansa was a lady at three, always so courteous and eager to please. She loved nothing so well as tales of knightly valor. Men would say she had my look, but she will grow into a woman far more beautiful than I ever was, you can see that. I often sent away her maid so I could brush her hair myself. She had auburn hair, lighter than mine, and so thick and soft . . . the red in it would catch the light of the torches and shine like copper.

-Catelyn VII, aCok

Girls with copper red hair are lucky but they often die, Catelyn throat slit and thrown in a river and Ygritte arrow through the chest and in Jon's dream she is dissolved and boil but in the waking world, she was burned. Both of these carry betrayal as part of the circumstances and both mimic sacrifices which you noted before. So I think it is safe to say that Nissa Nissa was a copper red headed woman. Nissa Nissa as an egg and Jon's dream of Ygritte boiling in the pool is connected to Dolorous Edd's joke about wanting to be a boiled egg is equating all of these to the sacrifice of a woman.   

Edit: I guess I should add this here. I forgot to make this point since I wrote this at 2:30am.

The pool at Winterfell can be considered a natural well. And [LmL] did liken the meteorite falling into the sea to the greenseers pulling down the moon and throwing it into the well. The sacrifice of red heads is like the hanging tree. It is a wishing well, throwing pennies is buying wishes and throwing people down into pools of water as sacrifice to buy favor from the gods are the same thing in the series. In our real world, humans have done both. Cenotes are natural wells in central America and as such were considered openings to the underworld. People and Objects have been often found in these Cenotes. And the central American tribes venerate both the sea and the cenotes as the openings to the underworld. 

Its the same notion that drives us to consider the severed foot of a rabbit to bring us luck. Which if you notice, Martin did place in the series in the form of the Wild Hares tying the pelts of dead hares to their spears. 

 

And in this quote we have fire and copper together. So naturally I thought about other associations of fire and copper. Renly, which Donal Noye explained was Copper was a fiery demon upon Resurrection. House Thenn's sigil is a round copper disk on fire. My little joke about their house words being "Then and [k]Now" is because the creation of this house in the Now is showing us something from back Thenn. I inserted the K to make the word 'know' which is a further pun on the 'fire of the gods' being knowledge.  

Now the other idiom of a "Bad penny" has two meanings. The first one is a badly minted penny which ends up as collectors items and some 'bad pennys' end up being valued as much as 13k. Something that represents the lowest form of currency has the highest worth because it is rare, and a badly formed minted mistake. Its the God-On-Earth riding around in a pearl which I consider him to be a lick-spittle lord. By the way, Penny's brother Oppo went by the name Groat which is a silver coin that was only worth 4 pence. A pence is British English word for penny but since Groat lost his head because someone thought he was Tyrion, we should take pence as pensive, or thinking. Chopped off head that has an association to pennies and knowledge. Groat is also another word for grain, so that puts him in association with Bran and Jon's Corn King symbolism and since he was decapitated this would point to Bran the blessed imagery.

The second meaning of this idiom is a person that appears at an inopportune time. Basically a bad penny is a bad luck penny. Now for this meaning to make sense in relation to the series we need to revisited the goddess Fortuna. Among being associated, with wheels of fortune, she was decidedly a goddess of Fate. So that would put her on the same level as the fates, the norms etc. etc. Tyrion is the bad penny in regards to how Cersei sees him in her fate as the valonqar. And he is probably going to show up as the bad penny back in Westeros soon, hopefully. 

A rather famous adage in relation to Fortuna is "Fortes Fortuna Adiuvat," which is translated as "Fortune favors the bold." Now in relation to the series 'boldness' often has the meaning of foolishness. But boldness goes hand in hand with bravery as seen in foolishly brave Ser Waymar Royce fighting the others. But in the next chapter we get this:

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What do you think?" his father asked.

Bran thought about it. "Can a man still be brave if he's afraid?"

"That is the only time a man can be brave," his father told him.

-Bran I, aGoT

Among the many things we know about the NK is that he wasn't afraid of anything and he was bold enough to chase after that woman with pale ice cold skin and Bright blue star eyes. You mentioned that pennies are considered stars so it would seem that pennies are already associated with stars. The bright part is what Donal Noye says about Renly being copper, bright and shiny.  

And since the NQ is the mother of the white shadows, I want to show you that copper is also associated with shadows and stars.

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It had grown so silent in the hall that she could hear the bells in Khal Drogo's hair, chiming softly with each step he took. His bloodriders followed him, like three copper shadows. Daenerys had gone cold all over. "He says you shall have a splendid golden crown that men shall tremble to behold."

-Dany V, aGoT

And of course this is when Dany is the icy moon maiden which is the answer to the question about Styr marrying Alys Karstark. Drogo is Styr and Alys is Dany. 

Edit: the part about the golden crown echos to the Tree of Crowns where the Band of Nine swore oaths to make themselves kings. And then the Prince made the joke about crowns going for "nine a penny". Here we have the association of a Tree with power, wishes being made and then the extension of those wishes being bought for a penny.

And another thing, the king being crowned here is Viserys, the Beggar King. The Begging Brothers of the Faith are also called the Brown Brothers and this links Daemon II Blackfyre as the Brown Dragon. It isn't a one to one correlation but if we consider that Aegon II Targaryen is a Golden Dragon (a coin) with his personal sigil depicting a golden dragon in homage to Sunfyre and is called Grasping by a court wit, we can see the association with Viserys the Beggar King, and Daemon II Blackfyre as the Brown Dragon. 

The stars may not be obvious but the bloodriders as part Drogo's khalsar they are considered stars. The other stars is the reference to the gold medallion belt that Drogo melts in order to crown Viserys. That is a reference to The Father pulling down seven stars to crown Hugor of the Hill. Hill is the surname given to the natural son or daughter of a Westerlander and the West is known for its gold. The more abstract association is the hunter Orion having in our real world, a belt made of stars. So the act of Drogo, a hunter, taking off his belt and melting it to crown Viserys is the same as the Father pulling the stars to crown Hugor. 

Now to go back to the luck, lot, gambling. Mel is a red headed person that was Melony Lot Seven, since we assume that this was a slave auction, this groups her into the sacrificed girls category. Edit: Mel was sold to the temple. The act of becoming a temple priestess is called being married to the god of that temple in many cases. In our real world, nuns are referred to as Brides of Christ and in universe the Silent Sisters are called the Stranger's wives, Fireball's wife was sent to the Silent Sisters in preparation for his position in the Kingsguard. This is usually by choice- we do have exceptions like my example of Fireball, which the exception is more typical of several mythologies and fairy tales that are abound with woman being forcibly married to gods. Cupid and Psyche are prime examples of this. The part that gets left out is that at times, being married to a god goes hand in hand with being sacrificed to that god. "Moon is woman wife of Sun, it is known." Nissa Nissa giving her life to birth a sword for her Lord Husband. 

While I was looking for more associations between luck and gambling I ran across this quote 

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Weese never imagined she could read, though, so he never bothered to seal the messages he gave her. Arya peeked at them all, but they were never anything good, just stupid stuff sending this cart to the granary and that one to the armory. One was a demand for payment on a gambling debt, but the knight she gave it to couldn't read. When she told him what it said he tried to hit her, but Arya ducked under the blow, snatched a silver-banded drinking horn off his saddle, and darted away. The knight roared and came after her, but she slid between two wayns, wove through a crowd of archers, and jumped a latrine trench. In his mail he couldn't keep up. When she gave the horn to Weese, he told her that a smart little Weasel like her deserved a reward. "I've got my eye on a plump crisp capon to sup on tonight. We'll share it, me and you. You'll like that."

She stole a horn from an illiterate knight that owed a gambling debt. Odin like you wrote pulled his eye out in order to learn the secret of the runes which is learning to read. We have several instances of foolish knights which is exemplified by Dontos who played Florian to Sansa's Jonquil. If we take this scene to be a precursor to the human greenseers sounding the horn in order to bring down the moon in order to gain the fire of the gods, then perhaps the events that led to the long night as much different than we think. What do you think? 

Edit: In the morning light, Arya is acting like the dwarfs that steal the dragon egg. My reasoning is that as the egg is a symbol of fertility, so too is the horn because while I do think the horn can be this Horn of Winter or the sound that accompanied the destruction of the moon, the horn can be considered a cornucopia, another symbol of fertility. The way I think of it is that this horn is like a sword, a symbol of fertility turned into a weapon which is what you have explained at great length. 

Edit: There is another association with a fiery greenseer, gambling, silver and tiles. Since Hodor threw the piece of tile into the well like the egg. 

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"Your man Timett slew a wineseller's son this evening, at a gambling den on the Street of Silver. He accused him of cheating at tiles."

-Tyrion III, aCoK

A wineseller's son here should be viewed as the son of Gilbert of the Vine- a son of Garth. So it would be the death of a green man. And Timett falls into the Odin sacrificing for power very neatly. The gambling den is meant as a place where Lady Luck dwells. The Street of Silver is like the Silver horn in the Arya quote because in Westeros, while a golden coin is a dragon, a silver coin is a Stag. ' The cheating at tiles', since you mentioned Hodor throwing the tile down the well like a falling star into the ocean, this would echo Dunk as The Hedge Knight and understanding that "Hedging your bets" is a form of cheating at gambling. That is a loose interpretation, I know but we do see this in Varys and Illyrio having contingency plan after contingency plan. One of which involved Viserys. 

Above in the other comment, I mentioned that this Timett scene is echoing Tyrion and Aegon VI because while Tyrion is playing Cyvasse with Aegon VI and pawns it off as trying to teach him a lesson, he was actually taking advantage of Aegon's trust. And Aegon reacts as anyone would in response to cheat by flipping over tables. Insert the mental image of cowboys flipping over a card table at the local Saloon and then pointing their guns at each other. Almost always the card is a high value card like a Queen, a Jack, a King, or an ace. There is more I can add to this imagery, especially Texas Hold'em with it is three card 'flop', its fourth 'turn' and its fifth card named the "River" and the other card game of Three Card Monte better known as Find the Lady, which is often associated with cheating. And I know GRRM makes a reference to cards and horned kings via Black Jack Bulwer. Black Jack being the other name for the card game '21' and his sigil is a the skeletal head of a bull and the seat of the house is Blackcrown and sits on the NORTHERN coast of Whispering Sound. Thus associates Black Jack with the north, a blackcrown, a dead horned lord, and the whispering sound that is associated with rustling of leaves, etc. etc. etc. 

Now to the Tyrion's relation to the dwarfs that went down the privy shaft with Lord Butterwell's dragon eggs. Tyrion has his nose cut off during the battle of the Blackwater. During my sojourn into word searching, I found that Prince Daemon Targaryen imposed the punishment to thieves by cutting off their noses. That is interesting since the Blackfyre at Lord Butterwell's was Daemon II Blackfyre, the Brown Dragon. Tyrion was also in charge of Casterly Rock's cisterns and sewage system. Edit: And he admitted to setting fires in the bowls. 

The term sewer is either for sewer or a person that sews. Remember that I pointed out that Vega, the falling eagle star that I linked to Bran and is hinted at through Orelle's eagle burning and falling out of the sky, is called in Asian mythology the Weaver Girl or the weaving goddess. This would mean that she is a weaver of fate. Bran as Vega can be thought of as weaving fate when he ventures into the weirwood net; we should think of it as an abstract woven net. Sew is a homonym of sow, to plant or farm which is an aspect of the green men that we see (I actually would say that this is symbolism for the Brown Brothers as the sigil for House Darry is a black plough man on brown which is exctly what Daemon II Blackfyre is meant to look like covered in mud but with the add connotation of covered in shit) Meera like you pointed out, traps Sam in a Net and comes out of a sewer like well which you likened this to the dwarfs stealing the dragons eggs . Edit: And should be likened to Tyrion setting fires in the bowls of Casterly Rock. So I can say that sewing/weaving, sow/farming, sewage/privy shaft, is connected to the stealing of the fire of the gods. 

Now to my side note about House Dondarrion.

If we split up the word Dondarrion we get Don and Darrion. Don while being short for Donald, is Spanish for Lord. Don Quixote de La Mancha was an old man, who convinced himself he was a knight because of all the stories he read as a kid about knights (this theme is all over the series). So he went around fighting windmills he thought were giants. The part on his "De La Mancha" means in Spanish From the Stain which I am relatively sure that whatever happened to break the cycle of seasons is a stain as in a sin. The Don in Dondarrion could easily be Don Juan which is a title for a man that loves many women and this would make sense as well since Berric as the lightning lord is connected to Robert the Storm lord and Robert was a Don Juan. Lord Berric as our first example of House Dondarrion goes on a quest to fight the Mountain who is considered a giant but isn't really a giant which is the same theme of Don Quixote fighting giants that are really windmills. So I would say that Don Quixote as allusion is the best fit for Lord Berric Dondarrion.

Now for the second part of Dondarrion. Darrion sounds like the name Darian but is spelled with an 'O' so that leads me to believe that it should be Dorian. As in the title character of The Picture of Dorian Grey. Basically this guy Dorian Grey is able to gave immortality by making his picture take all of his sins. In the series, this would equate to the scapegoat symbolism. If Dorian ever looks upon his picture he would age and die. How does this equate with Lord Berric? Berric is symbolizing a fiery greenseer and he is called the scarecrow lord, he is both Dorian Grey and the his picture since scarecrow can be a scapegoat better known as a whipping boy; a stand in. The Grey King is associated with this.  

So I hope I made it a bit more clearer. 

Edit: 

So I ran across another one of my associations with pennies. 

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"Ser Glendon has hero's blood," Dunk blurted out.

"Oh, I do hope so. Hero's blood should be good for two to one. Whore's blood draws poorer odds. Ser Glendon speaks about his purported sire at every opportunity, but have you noticed that he never makes mention of his mother? For good reason. He was born of a camp follower. Jenny, her name was. Penny Jenny, they called her, until the Redgrass Field. The night before the battle, she fucked so many men that thereafter she was known as Redgrass Jenny. Fireball had her before that, I don't doubt, but so did a hundred other men. Our friend Glendon presumes quite a lot, it seems to me. He does not even have red hair." Hero's blood, thought Dunk. "He says he is a knight."

"Oh, that much is true. The boy and his sister grew up in a brothel, called the Pussywillows. After Penny Jenny died, the other whores took care of them and fed the lad the tale his mother had concocted, about him being Fireball's seed. An old squire who lived nearby gave the boy his training, such that it was, in trade for ale and cunt, but being but a squire he could not knight the little bastard. Half a year ago, however, a party of knights chanced upon the brothel and a certain Ser Morgan Dunstable took a drunken fancy to Ser Glendon's sister. As it happens, the sister was still a virgin and Dunstable did not have the price of her maidenhead. So a bargain was struck. Ser Morgan clubbed her brother a knight, right there in the Pussywillows in front of twenty witnesses, and afterwards little sister took him upstairs and let him pluck her flower. 

-

Ser Glendon born from Penny Jenny from the seed of Ser Quentyn "Fireball" Ball. Hero's blood here should be interpreted as Kingsblood and Holy Blood. The qualification of whore's blood drawing poorer odds, speaks of the offering of a sacrifice in order to get favorable luck. 

Her name changing to Redgrass Jenny in association with sacrifice can then be interpreted as grass watered with blood. So now that we have that image in our heads take a look at this quote by Berric 

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"Can I dwell on what I scarce remember? I held a castle on the Marches once, and there was a woman I was pledged to marry, but I could not find that castle today, nor tell you the color of that woman's hair. Who knighted me, old friend? What were my favorite foods? It all fades. Sometimes I think I was born on the bloody grass in that grove of ash, with the taste of fire in my mouth and a hole in my chest. Are you my mother, Thoros?"

-aSoS, Arya VII

 

[GloubieBoulga]

1 hour ago, Blue Tiger said:

Hmm... That Barnstokkr story reference?

There is surely, the name "Sigorn" always made me think to the Nibelungenlied with their Siegmund/Siegfried/Sieglinde, or in the Völsunga saga Signy, Siggeir, Sigmund, aso...

Note that a recent hypothesis is that Branstokkr isn't the original name, but Bran(d)stokkr (here "brandr" could be a synonyme for the word hearth - as it is sometimes in old norse - where fire is burning). 

[Isobel Harper]

@Pain Killer Jane 

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Girls with copper red hair are lucky but they often die, Catelyn throat slit and thrown in a river and Ygritte arrow through the chest and in Jon's dream she is dissolved and boil but in the waking world, she was burned. Both of these carry betrayal as part of the circumstances and both mimic sacrifices which you noted before. So I think it is safe to say that Nissa Nissa was a copper red headed woman. Nissa Nissa was an egg and Jon's dream of Ygritte boiling in the pool is connected to Dolorous Edd's joke about wanting to be a boiled egg.  

One little correct.  Only three people in the series are described as having copper hair - Sansa, Melisandre, and Addam Marbrand.  Now, I will say though that GRRM has made red-heads (of all shades) "lucky," but this is probably due to Parris bring a red head, not an allusion to lucky "pennies."

[Pain killer Jane]

5 hours ago, Isobel Harper said:

@Pain Killer Jane 

One little correct.  Only three people in the series are described as having copper hair - Sansa, Melisandre, and Addam Marbrand.  Now, I will say though that GRRM has made red-heads (of all shades) "lucky," but this is probably due to Parris bring a red head, not an allusion to lucky "pennies."

They are if you toss them down wells. The pool at Winterfell can be considered a natural well. And LmL did liken the meteorite falling into the sea to the greenseers pulling down the moon and throwing it into the well. The sacrifice of red heads is like the hanging tree. It is a wishing well, throwing pennies is buying wishes and throwing people down into pools of water as sacrifice to buy favor from the gods are the same thing in the series. In our real world, humans have done both. Cenotes in are natural wells in central America and as such were considered openings to the underworld. People and Objects have been often found in these Cenotes. And the central American tribes venerate both the sea and the cenotes as the openings to the underworld. 

Its the same notion that drives us to consider a severed foot of the rabbit to bring us luck. Which if you notice, Martin did place in the series in the form of the Wild Hares tying the pelts of dead hares to their spears. 

I can even extend this symbolism into the social commentary on the objectification of women and the complexity of intersectional feminism by placing it as a focal point during a time when the religio-socio-political realms were much more entangled than in our modern world. Like I said Martin is holding a very dark mirror up to us in the modern world.  

Edit: I guess I should have added this up there in order to make my point. 

[Bluetiger]

From Behind The Name

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Given Name BRANDR

GENDER: Masculine

USAGE: Ancient Scandinavian

Meaning & History

Old Norse byname meaning "sword" or "fire".

Related Names

OTHER LANGUAGES/CULTURES: Brando (Ancient Germanic
 

Names related to Brandr

 
EQUIVALENTS ANCIENT GERMANIC: Brando

ANCIENT SCANDINAVIAN: Brandr

FEMININE FORMS

ENGLISH: Brenda

OTHER FORMS ENGLISH: Brand, Branda, Brandt, Branson, Brant, Brenna

GRRM actually used 'Branda Stark' as name. So maybe he got name from Old Norse,not Old English... Or maybe from Welsh Bran...

But that's not important.  It's certainly possible and very likely that he knows all these meanings and used them to weave this rich thread of symbolism around Bran.

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From a surname which was derived from a place name meaning "hill covered with broom" in Old English. It is sometimes also used as a variant of BRENDAN.

 

Some of my old comments about name Brandon:

Miller's Bran 

Bran = sword, broom, wooden stick, raven, torch, flaming sword, burning iron (the falling meteor), crow, much and more

Branstokkr (cgrav's post)

Burning Barns

Myth of Barnstokkr

There were posts about St.Brendan's Voyage and Pope Gregory (Hildebrand) and Bran as High Septon, but I think they're right below these I linked above.

 

There's so much symbolism behind Bran's name (and names in ASOIAF in general)... Maybe I'll write essay for The Amber Compendium to gather all that stuff in one place.

 

[Unchained]

3 hours ago, Isobel Harper said:

@Pain Killer Jane 

One little correct.  Only three people in the series are described as having copper hair - Sansa, Melisandre, and Addam Marbrand.  Now, I will say though that GRRM has made red-heads (of all shades) "lucky," but this is probably due to Parris bring a red head, not an allusion to lucky "pennies."

I really like the part about Nissa Nissa being a redhead.  That goes well with the idea that she is a weirwood person and Odin driving Gram into a tree.  I find myself wondering more and more is she, instead of being a woman who is symbolically a tree, is rather a tree who is symbolically a woman, or if she is an idea that is equal parts both.  If AA is a greenseer isn't he more likely to be married to a tree rather than a woman? 

[ravenous reader]

9 hours ago, LmL said:

I definitely don't hate you, but I am not really following you either. You have a much better knowledge of literature than I do and I just don't know what you're referring to half the time if you don't explain it a bit more. 

 

I have to say, none of this is making any sense to me tonight. There's a bit too much wordplay seven degrees of separation here, I'm just not comfortable with that kind of analysis. Perhaps it will make sense if you explain it, but your thoughts are moving very fast here and I am not keeping up, sorry to say. How did Donal Noye become Tyr? What does this have to do with swamps now?  LoL. You need to walk me through it a bit. I mean, I do that for everyone else, don't I? One step at a time, so I can follow your brilliance. Right now I am just confused. 

ha ha ha...This is what makes you so lovable, dear dragon, and keeps me forgiving you time and again when you huff and puff and threaten to blow my nennymansion to the ground / sea bed-- your honesty and willingness to admit when you don't understand something and/or suspect the emperor may be wearing no clothes in the swamp too swampy for common decency!

If it makes you feel any better -- I often feel dizzy when PK starts swinging gargoyle-to-gargoyle: it's like a million-billion haikus being fused fast-forward into one brilliant hydrogen bomb!

9 hours ago, LmL said:

This I follow. Pennytree lies directly between the Teats - Barbra's or Missy's, depending on who you ask. Right in the breast, in other words, and Ser Arlan's Winged Chalice sigil is the fire of the gods in grail form. I've been wondering about the pennies... although now I recall copper pennies are also called copper stars, so the Pennytree is really a star tree, right between the tits, and yes, it would make a good conductor, wouldn't it? Of course Dunk himself is a star tree type of guy as well. 

The Karstark sigil is called a white star or a white sunburst, and the Karstarks are called white star wolves in AGOT.  So the copper sunburst reinforces the idea of a star, not just a sun.  It's a copper sun instead of a white sun. Didn't we talk about all this? A white dwarf is a dying star, and the rebirth of the house through House Thenn represents a rebirth of the sun. @ravenous reader, is this your ball of wax? 

Eh, no,...dwarf stars have never been my kettle of fish nor ball of wax -- one might say, I've not kept 'abreast' of the more abstruse of the celestial metaphors...As far as I understand it, they are very pale, dying suns, right ('pale fire'...the opposite of red giants?)

Good catch by you and PK on the pennytree/startree symbolism (how long have I been telling you like Carl Sagan that the weirwood is a startree..?!)  Now that you've located said startree smack-bang in the middle of the breast or chest -- i.e. in the 'ribcage' of which the greenseer is its symbolic heart -- it's all very apropos.  (and of course ties into the Nissa Nissa legend, in which 'twas between the breasts she bared to the sword that she was smote, with the cry of agony and ecstasy that rent the firmament and impregnated the world!)

To be exact, 'copper pennies' are not equivalent in value to 'copper stars'...there seem to be a number of copper coins of various sizes, of which the stars are the largest in size and presumably highest currency denomination among the coppers:

Quote

A Feast for Crows - Prologue

And I should like to sleep with Rosey's arms around me, Pate thought. He shifted restlessly on the bench. By the morrow the girl could well be his. I will take her far from Oldtown, across the narrow sea to one of the Free Cities. There were no maesters there, no one to accuse him.

He could hear Emma's laughter coming through a shuttered window overhead, mingled with the deeper voice of the man she was entertaining. She was the oldest of the serving wenches at the Quill and Tankard, forty if she was a day, but still pretty in a fleshy sort of way. Rosey was her daughter, fifteen and freshly flowered. Emma had decreed that Rosey's maidenhead would cost a golden dragon. Pate had saved nine silver stags and a pot of copper stars and pennies, for all the good that would do him. He would have stood a better chance of hatching a real dragon than saving up enough coin to make a golden one.

"You were born too late for dragons, lad," Armen the Acolyte told Roone. Armen wore a leather thong about his neck, strung with links of pewter, tin, lead, and copper, and like most acolytes he seemed to believe that novices had turnips growing from their shoulders in place of heads. "The last one perished during the reign of King Aegon the Third."

 

A Feast for Crows - Brienne IV

"No," she said sternly. "You are not to try and fight him. All I ask is that you watch him as I sleep, and wake me if he does anything suspicious. I wake quickly, you will find."

Crabb showed his true colors the next day, when they stopped to water the horses. Brienne had to step behind some bushes to empty her bladder. As she was squatting, she heard Podrick say, "What are you doing? You get away from there." She finished her business, hiked up her breeches, and returned to the road to find Nimble Dick wiping flour off his fingers. "You won't find any dragons in my saddlebags," she told him. "I keep my gold upon my person." Some of it was in the pouch at her belt, the rest hidden in a pair of pockets sewn inside her clothing. The fat purse inside her saddlebag was filled with coppers large and small, pennies and halfpennies, groats and stars . . . and fine white flour, to make it fatter still. She had bought the flour from the cook at the Seven Swords the morning she rode out from Duskendale.

 

1 hour ago, Pain killer Jane said:

They are if you toss them down wells. The pool at Winterfell can be considered a natural well. And LmL did liken the wells to the greenseers pulling down the moon and throwing it into the well. The sacrifice of red heads is like the hanging tree. It is a wishing well, throwing pennies is buying wishes and throwing people down into pools of water as sacrifice to buy favor from the gods are the same thing in the series. In our real world, humans have done both. Cenotes in are natural wells in central America and as such were considered openings to the underworld. People and Objects have been often found in these Cenotes.  And the central American tribes venerate both the sea and the cenotes as the openings to the underworld.

I do think GRRM is deriving inspiration from those 'bog bodies' of Northern Europe.  Drowning someone in a swamp/bog is akin to throwing them down a well.  Archaelogy has revealed that a lot of the sacrificial victims were given the 'threefold death' treatment -- namely, hanging, wounding and drowning.  Interestingly, the tannins in the bog dye the hair of all the victims (regardless of the original color during life) a brilliant metallic coppery-red -- so with time all of them end up perfectly preserved by the anaerobic, acid environment, like gleaming, finely-chiselled dark bronze statues carved by Rodin, with coppery explosions of hair on their heads!  Very striking appearance -- having inspired poets such as Seamus Heaney to write his 'bog poems'.

Regarding the custom of affixing pennies to a tree, there is an analogous superstitious tradition of driving nails into an oak tree in order to propitiate the gods and heal someone who was ailing (especially toothache) -- so that ties in with the wishing tree/wishing well idea.  When Arya is given the iron-studded leather vest at Acorn Hall by Lady Smallwood, she's basically recapitulating her aunt Lyanna's guise of 'knight of the laughing tree'!

 

3 hours ago, Isobel Harper said:

@Pain Killer Jane 

One little correct.  Only three people in the series are described as having copper hair - Sansa, Melisandre, and Addam Marbrand.  Now, I will say though that GRRM has made red-heads (of all shades) "lucky," but this is probably due to Parris bring a red head, not an allusion to lucky "pennies."

I don't know too much about 'Adam Marbrand' but it seems wordplay- and imagery-wise GRRM has gone into fiery-red-overkill with him.  Not only does his family name 'Marbrand' contain the German word for fire 'Brand' (just like our Brandon), but his first name 'Adam' means red, ruddy, bloody earth (as well as connoting the shadow of 'original sin'), all his accoutrements are fiery red, down to his sigil of a 'burning tree' (again the stain of 'original sin' and expulsion from the Garden of Eden after partaking of the tree of enlightenment) and his horse!

Quote

A Clash of Kings - Arya VIII

Lord Tywin Lannister was marching at last.

Ser Addam Marbrand was the first of the captains to depart, a day before the rest. He made a gallant show of it, riding a spirited red courser whose mane was the same copper color as the long hair that streamed past Ser Addam's shoulders. The horse was barded in bronze-colored trappings dyed to match the rider's cloak and emblazoned with the burning tree. Some of the castle women sobbed to see him go. Weese said he was a great horseman and sword fighter, Lord Tywin's most daring commander.

I hope he dies, Arya thought as she watched him ride out the gate, his men streaming after him in a double column. I hope they all die. They were going to fight Robb, she knew. Listening to the talk as she went about her work, Arya had learned that Robb had won some great victory in the west. He'd burned Lannisport, some said, or else he meant to burn it. He'd captured Casterly Rock and put everyone to the sword, or he was besieging the Golden Tooth . . . but something had happened, that much was certain

Marbrand is also credited with setting the Riverlands on fire.  And, as if that weren't enough 'burning' references associated with the Marbrands, they also come from Ashemark!  

50 minutes ago, Unchained said:

I really like the part about Nissa Nissa being a redhead.  That goes well with the idea that she is a weirwood person and Odin driving Gram into a tree.  I find myself wondering more and more is she, instead of being a woman who is symbolically a tree, is rather a tree who is symbolically a woman, or if she is an idea that is equal parts both.  If AA is a greenseer isn't he more likely to be married to a tree rather than a woman? 

Hi Unchained -- after reading a number of your thought-provoking posts, I can say you certainly have an 'unchained' imagination -- welcome to the forum!  Sorry I haven't gotten back to you on your previous intriguing ideas about the dragon-to-tree and tree-to-dragon transformation in the magical economy-- I must have gotten distracted.  We'll have to revisit that one some time!   

Indeed, we've previously discussed, although perhaps not fully explored, Nissa Nissa as tree -- I think both @LmL and @LordBlakeney happened on that idea.

I also agree with @Evolett and @Brian Powers Of Palantíri that the giant white rat who eats its own children (and presides as chef in the octagonal kitchen of the nightfort) is none other than our weirwood tree -- or Nissa Nissa.

 

[Unchained]

Hey @ravenous reader, I haven't seen that Rat Cook thread before I will give it a read.  Don't sweat the lack of a response to the tinfoil I threw around my first couple days to the forums.  I do think I may be onto something concerning skinchanging and light ringer forging, but it needs to cook a little longer.

 

I have seen a lot here about Sansa as a moon meteor leaving Kings Landing and imbedding in the ice moon of the Vale.  Other places people talk about Lady Stoneheart as an AAR person.  Has anyone ever broken down the red and purple weddings as LB forgings fueled by Robb and Joff's king's blood?  I mean they kinda have to be for those other two things to be the case, right?  I gave them a reread and there is definitely something there.  Is anyone aware of this being analyzed?  I cannot be the first person to see the the dancing Summer Islanders at Joff's wedding in fiery, smoky, silk robes.  

 

 

 

 

[LmL]

hi @Pain killer Jane, thanks for taking the time to explain that a little more thoroughly, it does make a lot more sense now. There are a couple of things I'm not too sure about, but at least I can follow what you're saying and most of it makes sense. I'm on the way to work now so I don't have any time to comment, but I just read through the last batch of comments and I'm enjoying the conversation. Addam marbrand is a piece of work, indeed. He's got some killer Last Hero math that I'm going to discuss when I go back to the Burning Tree and the red leaf hands symbolism. 

@ravenous reader the rat Koch idea makes a lot of sense. I will have to take a look at that, the trees definitely like to eat people. Since we get that story prominently in the nightfort chapter I think it makes sense. That also further connects the hearths in the NF with weirwood mouths, and thus back to brandr which means hearth and also flaming sword or burning brand. I'd say I buy that idea already. So extrapolating further, the rat cook violated guest rite. (Right or rite?) How does that apply to the weirwood tree, or to the first Garth? How did the weirwoods violate guest rite? And in what sense are they being punished for that? This must have something to do with them trapping people inside

 

 

[GloubieBoulga]

1 hour ago, Blue Tiger said:

From Behind The Name

GRRM actually used 'Branda Stark' as name. So maybe he got name from Old Norse,not Old English... Or maybe from Welsh Bran...

But that's not important.  It's certainly possible and very likely that he knows all these meanings and used them to weave this rich thread of symbolism around Bran.

 

Some of my old comments about name Brandon:

Miller's Bran 

Bran = sword, broom, wooden stick, raven, torch, flaming sword, burning iron (the falling meteor), crow, much and more

Branstokkr (cgrav's post)

Burning Barns

Myth of Barnstokkr

(....)

 

Hahaha, I come too late ! ^^

 

Too late also with Addam Marbrand and his burning tree.

But @ravenous reader and @LmL the burning tree imagery evokes first for me the burning little tree in Moises's story, YHWH's voice in fact, who reveals himself to Moises and make him his prophet, and I'm surprised that nobody made the link (or I've missed some posts) 

(yes ! I was looking for the exact word in english, it's the "burning bush")

(The tree's stuff evokes also for me - far before the norse mythology that I knew only partially - the genealogy and particulary Jesse's tree : Jesse's tree seems to be an iconic invention of the early middle age, based on one verse of the bible and one evangile, to illustrate all the genealogy of Jesus Christ, with the ancestor Jesse, almost painted as a sleeper who have a prophetic dream - he sleeps and a huge tree emerges from him with all his descendant, the last is Jesus. Jesse was king David's father. This iconography had very huge success in Europe, especially during feodal and pre-modern period because the genealogy was a manner to justify a posteriori a position of power in the society. In fact, here, I think there is an encounter and a mix between a pagan tradition where great families/people/villages have heroes and gods as great ancestor, and christianism. Perhaps it explains why I imagine so easily that the Stark have an ancient story with "great" ancestors who committed determinant acts for the present of the saga ^^)

[cgrav]

@LmL the Rat Cook is also Bloodraven: a NW brother who had killed a royal claimant promised protection and was consequently turned into a white creature with an insatiable appetite... for knowledge.  

Maybe the violation of the right isn't just physical imprisonment in the tree, but a metaphorical imprisonment in the past and a sea of knowledge that can never be fully comprehended. We see Bran simultaneously afraid to leave the visions of the past and frustrated that he can do nothing about them. I think Ned's later scenes also convey the idea of memory as a prison, while he literally immobilized and imprisoned in the Red Keep. 

[LmL]

1 hour ago, Unchained said:

Hey @ravenous reader, I haven't seen that Rat Cook thread before I will give it a read.  Don't sweat the lack of a response to the tinfoil I threw around my first couple days to the forums.  I do think I may be onto something concerning skinchanging and light ringer forging, but it needs to cook a little longer.

 

I have seen a lot here about Sansa as a moon meteor leaving Kings Landing and imbedding in the ice moon of the Vale.  Other places people talk about Lady Stoneheart as an AAR person.  Has anyone ever broken down the red and purple weddings as LB forgings fueled by Robb and Joff's king's blood?  I mean they kinda have to be for those other two things to be the case, right?  I gave them a reread and there is definitely something there.  Is anyone aware of this being analyzed?  I cannot be the first person to see the the dancing Summer Islanders at Joff's wedding in fiery, smoky, silk robes.  

 

 

 

 

The who now dancing in the what now? Egads! I have indeed analyzed the purple wedding in my third episode, waves of night and moon blood, but I missed the dancing fire people! It's been a while since I looked at that scene though, I probably haven't looked at it since I made the discovery about the burning sorcerers. Great find!

You're absolutely right this is a lightbringer forging party. Each lightbringer forging metaphor showcases a different aspect of the process. The purple wedding is all about the exact process by which the sun is darkened. Sansa's purple snakes amethyst hair net from Asshai are the moon meteors, and they are what darken the face of the sun. I've spoken about this concept of lunar Revenge a few times, and that's what's going on here. The sun kills the Moon by stabbing it with the comet, but then the moon meteors land on the earth and throw up Ash and smoke which blots out the face of the Sun, turning it dark. Jeffrey drinks the chalice of immortality- the fire of the Gods, lightbringer in liquid form - but it kills him. That's the type of Godly fire we are talking about, the type that requires death transformation. The poisoned gift is one aspect of lightbringer, and obviously that is what Euron's poison gift theme alludes to. 

He uses widow's wail to slice apart that classic book Tyrion gives him - might not this be a version of Odin planting Gram in Brandstokkr? ( I vote we use that spelling). By the way @Blue Tiger did you appreciate me doing the digging on the fellow who made that interpretation of the spelling? I got all scholarly and stuff

[Pain killer Jane]

1 hour ago, LmL said:

hi @Pain killer Jane, thanks for taking the time to explain that a little more thoroughly, it does make a lot more sense now. There are a couple of things I'm not too sure about, but at least I can follow what you're saying and most of it makes sense.

I am glad it makes sense. Btw I went back and added a few more things to the comment. Point out which parts you're not sure about and I will explain further. 

[Bluetiger]

8 minutes ago, LmL said:

He uses widow's wail to slice apart that classic book Tyrion gives him - might not this be a version of Odin planting Gram in Brandstokkr? ( I vote we use that spelling). By the way @Blue Tiger did you appreciate me doing the digging on the fellow who made that interpretation of the spelling? I got all scholarly and stuff

I do. It adds credibility to the podcast... I'd advise you to mention that GRRM quote about his studies of Old Norse stuff (eddas, Sagas, etc.) in some future essay (The Yggdrasil one?) to reslove doubts of those who aren't convinced that GRRM knows all that symbolism stuff.

Quote

Still with me? The important thing here is that Gram is very much a parallel to Lightbringer.  Sigmund eventually comes against Odin himself in battle, though Odin is disguised, and Odin breaks Gram in half.  The two halves are kept by Sigmund’s wife – not his sister Signy, but a different woman – and she fathers Sigmund’s son Sigurd, eventually giving him the two pieces of the broken sword.  One day Sigmund hears of the dragon Fafnir, and needs a sword capable of slaying it, so a Dwarven smith named Regin makes three attempts to forge such a sword.  The first two attempts end up with inferior swords which are broken, but on the third attempt, Regin reforges the two halves of Gram and bingo, we have a dragon-slayer sword which Sigurd does eventually use to slay Fafnir.  Reforged Gram is “all decked with gold and gleaming bright,” and seems to have a dragon emblazoned on it, depending on how the text is translated.

Recall that brandr is the Norse word for flaming sword and torch or burning brand.  Jesse Byck, a professor of Old Norse and Medieval Scandinavian Studies at UCLA who also serves as the director of the Old Norse Studies Program and who has written several books on Norse mythology, is of the opinion that the original name of barnstokkr was branstokkr or brandstokkr, as brandr is also synonymous with “hearth,” and Volsung’s mighty hall was notable for being lined with blazing hearts on either side, much like the kitchen at the Nightfort or Harrnehall’s Hall of the Hundred Hearths.  Additionally, Gram the gleaming dragon sword comes from Branstokkr, so it makes sense that the root word of Branstokkr or Brandstokker would be brandr, a word for a flaming sword.  Obviously, the myth of a tree named Bran which is tied to a lightbringer-like sword works tremendously well as a part of Bran’s mythological influences.  Bran is both a flaming sword and a burning tree, the two forms of the fire of the gods in ASOIAF.  This is the same meteor fire / weirwood fire dichotomy we found with the Grey King’s possession of the fire of the gods, and that is not an accident of course.

Professor Byck also suggests that Branstokkr is simply another form of Yggdrasil, being a magical tree growing in the center of a sacred courtyard, among other reasons, further tying this myth to weirwoods, greenseers, and Bran.

I didn't know that bit. But even the things I already knew were cool, gathered in all place with explanations.

[Pain killer Jane]

3 hours ago, ravenous reader said:

If it makes you feel any better -- I often feel dizzy when PK starts swinging gargoyle-to-gargoyle: it's like a million-billion haikus being fused fast-forward into one brilliant hydrogen bomb!

3 hours ago, ravenous reader said:

I do think GRRM is deriving inspiration from those 'bog bodies' of Northern Europe.  Drowning someone in a swamp/bog is akin to throwing them down a well.  Archaelogy has revealed that a lot of the sacrificial victims were given the 'threefold death' treatment -- namely, hanging, wounding and drowning.  Interestingly, the tannins in the bog dye the hair of all the victims (regardless of the original color during life) a brilliant metallic coppery-red -- so with time all of them end up perfectly preserved by the anaerobic, acid environment, like gleaming, finely-chiselled dark bronze statues carved by Rodin, with coppery explosions of hair on their heads!  Very striking appearance -- having inspired poets such as Seamus Heaney to write his 'bog poems'.

Absolutely I agree with this. And imagine if one of these bog bodies were resurrected and venerated as a god or goddess. To me it seems very R'hllor/Lady Stoneheart/Drowned God type of deal. That fiery image is probably the source of Bog Devils is a byname for Crannogmen which is another take on Robert's nickname of Demon of the Trident. 

I went back and added a few things to the penny comment. 

[cgrav]

@Blue Tiger the Tree-as-Hearth concept is also presented somewhat directly by the Weirwood at Whitetree, which has a huge mouth containing charred human remains.  

Likely no coincidence that Yggdrasil is an ash tree, meaning that Brandstokkr is a pillar of ash surrounded by flame, which gets a sword stuck into it. Bring that into the LB myth with the weirwoods being visually on fire and the idea of pulling a sword from the flames becomes selfsame with pulling a sword from a Weirwood. 

Or if we take the weirwoods as a symbol of the Others, then it could mean taking a sword from an Other, which is exactly the oft-speculated of the original Ice.

[Bluetiger]

2 minutes ago, cgrav said:

@Blue Tiger the Tree-as-Hearth concept is also presented somewhat directly by the Weirwood at Whitetree, which has a huge mouth containing charred human remains.  

Likely no coincidence that Yggdrasil is an ash tree, meaning that Brandstokkr is a pillar of ash surrounded by flame, which gets a sword stuck into it. Bring that into the LB myth with the weirwoods being visually on fire and the idea of pulling a sword from the flames becomes selfsame with pulling a sword from a Weirwood. 

Or if we take the weirwoods as a symbol of the Others, then it could mean taking a sword from an Other, which is exactly the oft-speculated of the original Ice.

Thanks!

[Pain killer Jane]

2 hours ago, ravenous reader said:

Regarding the custom of affixing pennies to a tree, there is an analogous superstitious tradition of driving nails into an oak tree in order to propitiate the gods and heal someone who was ailing (especially toothache) -- so that ties in with the wishing tree/wishing well idea.  When Arya is given the iron-studded leather vest at Acorn Hall by Lady Smallwood, she's basically recapitulating her aunt Lyanna's guise of 'knight of the laughing tree'!

Now that is a fantastic catch. 

I want to show you the Nkondi. It is an effigy made by the Kongo people of the Congo. 

Quote

The primary function of a nkondi is to be the home of a spirit which can travel out from its base, hunt down and harm other people. Many nkondi were publicly held and were used to affirm oaths, or to protect villages and other locations from witches or evildoers. This is achieved by enlisting spiritual power through getting them to inhabit minkisi like nkondi.

The vocabulary of nkondi has connections with Kongo conceptions of witchcraft which are anchored in the belief that it is possible for humans to enroll spiritual forces to inflict harm on others through cursing them or causing them to have misfortune, accidents, or sickness. A frequently used expression for hammering in the nails into a nkondi is "koma nloka" (to attach or hammer in a curse)

While in your example it is for healing, the intent of the Nkondi is more in line with Lyanna's function punishing the squires and Arya's revenge theme for that part of the series.