Will the Real Varys Please Stand Up?

[Lollygag]

Just wondering where Varys learned to read the content of men's letters given that literacy rates are abysmal and probably even worse among slaves? Illyrio was a poor bravo, so I rather doubt he knew how to read himself until he became more older and more affluent.

Pyp was with a mummer's troupe and illiterate. Jon wanted more Watchmen who could read, so if Pyp could read, he'd have no doubt put Pyp to use.

Varys says his troupe was routinely in Oldtown, where Sam would have seen "the usual stupid farces". Is there another place where Varys could have learned to read, or was Varys actually in a Braavosi troupe?

ACoK Tyrion X: "Nor do I, but . . ." This pause was longer than the one before, and when Varys spoke again his voice was different somehow. "I was an orphan boy apprenticed to a traveling folly. Our master owned a fat little cog and we sailed up and down the narrow sea performing in all the Free Cities and from time to time in Oldtown and King's Landing.

"One day at Myr, a certain man came to our folly. After the performance, he made an offer for me that my master found too tempting to refuse. I was in terror. I feared the man meant to use me as I had heard men used small boys, but in truth the only part of me he had need of was my manhood. He gave me a potion that made me powerless to move or speak, yet did nothing to dull my senses. With a long hooked blade, he sliced me root and stem, chanting all the while. I watched him burn my manly parts on a brazier. The flames turned blue, and I heard a voice answer his call, though I did not understand the words they spoke.

"The mummers had sailed by the time he was done with me. Once I had served his purpose, the man had no further interest in me, so he put me out. When I asked him what I should do now, he answered that he supposed I should die. To spite him, I resolved to live. I begged, I stole, and I sold what parts of my body still remained to me. Soon I was as good a thief as any in Myr, and when I was older I learned that often the contents of a man's letters are more valuable than the contents of his purse.

 AFFC Sam II: "This ship will take us as far as Braavos," he said. "We'll find another ship to carry us to Oldtown. I read a book about Braavos when I was small. The whole city is built in a lagoon on a hundred little islands, and they have a titan there, a stone man hundreds of feet high. They have boats instead of horses, and their mummers play out written stories instead of just making up the usual stupid farces. The food is very good too, especially the fish. They have all kinds of clams and eels and oysters, fresh from their lagoon. We ought to have a few days between ships. If we do, we can go and see a mummer show, and have some oysters."

 

 

[Lollygag]

Adding to my previous post.

Varys is skilled mummer. He couldn't hide or at least alter his accent?

ADWD Tyrion II: "In Myr he was a prince of thieves, until a rival thief informed on him. In Pentos his accent marked him, and once he was known for a eunuch he was despised and beaten. Why he chose me to protect him I may never know, but we came to an arrangement. Varys spied on lesser thieves and took their takings. I offered my help to their victims, promising to recover their valuables for a fee. Soon every man who had suffered a loss knew to come to me, whilst city's footpads and cutpurses sought out Varys … half to slit his throat, the other half to sell him what they'd stolen. We both grew rich, and richer still when Varys trained his mice."

AGoT Arya II: "Tomorrow you will be here at midday," He had an accent, the lilt of the Free Cities, Braavos perhaps, or Myr.

Arya guesses that Syrio is from Braavos or Myr indicating that the accents are similar.

[Illyrio Mo'Parties]

Good catches. Varys's backstory is probably a lie. Note that Illyrio's tale doesn't jibe with Pycelle's - and I wonder where Pycelle got his info from?

That said:

1. Just because the Bravoosi troupe is acting out a written story doesn't necessarily mean the individual actors know how to read

2. I don't think it's that impossible that a slave or a lowborn person might learn to read. It's doable - the reason most people don't bother is they have no need for it

[Lollygag]

1. I agree, but since Sam says the Braavosi plays are more sophisticated, learning the lines becomes more complicated, especially for leads. It would make production much easier if the leads at least could read. Higher literacy rates among the actors compared to the slave-holding cities would explain why Braavosi plays were consistently higher quality.

2. Yeah, this is possible and Varys has shown himself to be very resourceful. It's just that the odds are so low for a slave to be able to read, self-taught or otherwise. It just smells off.

[Illyrio Mo'Parties]

6 hours ago, Lollygag said:

1. I agree, but since Sam says the Braavosi plays are more sophisticated, learning the lines becomes more complicated, especially for leads. It would make production much easier if the leads at least could read. Higher literacy rates among the actors compared to the slave-holding cities would explain why Braavosi plays were consistently higher quality.

2. Yeah, this is possible and Varys has shown himself to be very resourceful. It's just that the odds are so low for a slave to be able to read, self-taught or otherwise. It just smells off.

1. Yeah

2. Maybe. But don't forget that a lot of slaves have jobs that would require them to read, i.e. administering the household, teaching, scrivening, etc.

Also, perhaps Varys was trained as a spy. Prostitutes make good spies. You get to know the target intimately and can draw out their secrets, plus you have access to their lodgings, etc.

[John Suburbs]

On ‎4‎/‎1‎/‎2017 at 0:07 AM, Illyrio Mo'Parties said:

 

Quote

 

"What would you have me do?" asked the torchbearer, a stout man in a leather half cape. Even in heavy boots, his feet seemed to glide soundlessly over the ground. A round scarred face and a stubble of dark beard showed under his steel cap, and he wore mail over boiled leather, and a dirk and shortsword at his belt. It seemed to Arya there was something oddly familiar about him.

"If one Hand can die, why not a second?" replied the man with the accent and the forked yellow beard. "You have danced the dance before, my friend." He was no one Arya had ever seen before, she was certain of it. Grossly fat, yet he seemed to walk lightly, carrying his weight on the balls of his feet as a water dancer might. His rings glimmered in the torchlight, red-gold and pale silver, crusted with rubies, sapphires, slitted yellow tiger eyes. Every finger wore a ring; some had two.

"Before is not now, and this Hand is not the other," the scarred man said as they stepped out into the hall.

 

 

Which leads us to yet another Varys mystery: If Petyr and Lisa killed Jon Arryn and both Rossart and Chelstead were killed by Jaime and the MK, and Varys' time in KL began under Tywin, then what dance did Varys dance before that led to a dead Hand?

Is this nothing more than Varys somehow instigating Chelstead's death? Or did he have something to do with Arryn, either in conjunction with P&L (unlikely) or in a parallel plot? Could Varys (or P&L) be laboring under the misapprehension that they are the ones who killed Jon Arryn?

 

And yes, I can't fault Varys for not knowing what Littlefinger is up to. But I can fault him for not realizing that he doesn't know this or at least not placing this as his top priority. The dagger story (which Varys should have known was a lie), is central to this conflict. He should make it his top priority to find out why LF told this take and how he benefits by all of this.

 

[Therae]

4 minutes ago, John Suburbs said:

Which leads us to yet another Varys mystery: If Petyr and Lisa killed Jon Arryn and both Rossart and Chelstead were killed by Jaime and the MK, and Varys' time in KL began under Tywin, then what dance did Varys dance before that led to a dead Hand?

I think the idea is that the one hand who "could die" was actually JonCon, who was believed to have drunk himself to death in exile, i.e., Illyrio was suggesting that Varys could arrange for Ned's disappearance and presumed death, while recruiting him.

[Lost Melnibonean]

1 minute ago, Therae said:

I think the idea is that the one hand who "could die" was actually JonCon, who was believed to have drunk himself to death in exile, i.e., Illyrio was suggesting that Varys could arrange for Ned's disappearance and presumed death, while recruiting him.

YES!

[John Suburbs]

20 minutes ago, Therae said:

I think the idea is that the one hand who "could die" was actually JonCon, who was believed to have drunk himself to death in exile, i.e., Illyrio was suggesting that Varys could arrange for Ned's disappearance and presumed death, while recruiting him.

True. I forgot about JonCon. Still, I would think Illyrio would know that the difference between killing a sitting Hand outright and spreading tales about an exile that no one ever sees again are completely different circumstances.

[Lost Melnibonean]

13 minutes ago, John Suburbs said:

True. I forgot about JonCon. Still, I would think Illyrio would know that the difference between killing a sitting Hand outright and spreading tales about an exile that no one ever sees again are completely different circumstances.

IllIllyrio doesn't know anything. He is nothing but a figment of the George's fancy. What matters is what the storyteller was signalling. We did not have enough information to decipher the signal until Dance.