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'The Killing Word' -- A Re-examination of the Prologue


ravenous reader

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16 hours ago, ravenous reader said:

And, anyway, what is the origin of that curious expression 'blue murder,' again combining the blue and the blood?  Most accounts seem to reference a pun on the French 'mort bleau' (literally 'blue death') with 'mort Dieu' (the death of God)

I didn't have thought to that, hey ! "morbleu" is effectively an euphemism to evitate to say "mort dieu" (= "death of god", as you have noticed). It is just a phonetic deformation of the world."Mordieu" could appeal a curse on who pronounces it, it could be a litteral killing word, and that must be linked with the biblical interdiction to pronounce the name of god : only god has power to kill and to create with the word. 

What is interesting is that we find the two colors (red blood and blue (water ?)) in Tully's blaze, even if I linked the Tully's red to fire and warmth (and resurrecting from water, Catelyn is "kissed by fire"; without speaking about her taste for warmth in her bedchamber in Winterfell, in AGOT)

But to rest with the theme of the "killing word", it seems that the word is a name; some examples (non exhaustive) : 

- Alliser Thorne kills the new watchers by giving them new insulting name, like "lord Snow", "ser Pig", "Auroch". As Tyrion explain to Jon : 

 
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"Don't call me Lord Snow."
The dwarf lifted an eyebrow. "Would you rather be called the Imp? Let them see that their words can cut you, and you'll never be free of the mockery. If they want to give you a name, take it, make it your own. Then they can't hurt you with it anymore."(Jon III, AGOT)

 

- Ned Stark calling "Lady" before he sacrifices her, and looking in her eyes

- Reverse : Bran giving a name to his direwolf after the direwolf gave him life

- Yoren "killing" Arya by cuting her hairs (the hairs are blown by the wind and arrive where Ned Stark was beheaded) and giving her a new name "Arry" (plus, with her transformation to a boy, Arya lives a kind of "castration", I mean that she loose her feminine identity and she isn't comfortable with that)

- Littlefinger killing Sansa Stark and giving her a new name Alayne Stone. 

- Tyrion killing his father when Tywin pronounces the word "whore", a manner to call women even if they aren't whore like Tysha (who just committed the horrible crime to change her social condition !)

- The literaly Rains of Castamere. 

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On 4/12/2017 at 4:16 PM, GloubieBoulga said:
On 4/11/2017 at 11:30 PM, ravenous reader said:

And, anyway, what is the origin of that curious expression 'blue murder,' again combining the blue and the blood?  Most accounts seem to reference a pun on the French 'mort bleu' (literally 'blue death') with 'mort Dieu' (the death of God)

I didn't have thought to that, hey ! "morbleu" is effectively an euphemism to evitate to say "mort dieu" (= "death of god", as you have noticed). It is just a phonetic deformation of the word."Mordieu" could appeal a curse on who pronounces it, it could be a litteral killing word, and that must be linked with the biblical interdiction to pronounce the name of god : only god has power to kill and to create with the word. 

Merci for the French lesson, Gloubie!  This is all very interesting, adding an extra dimension to our understanding of  a 'killing word.'  As you say, uttering a blasphemy like 'mordieu' constitutes an aggressive challenge to God, and is likely to incur the wrath of God in response, bringing down a curse upon the one who uttered it.  This is equivalent to the repeated warning throughout the text that the kinslayer is accursed, since as I interpreted in the OP I believe the kinslaying in question at the heart of the saga was effected with a treacherous 'killing word' which came back to haunt the perpetrator.  Basically, we're talking about sorcery like the 'black spell' Bloodraven used (in conjunction with a 'white arrow') to kill his brother Daemon and sons from afar.  

In order to avoid responsibilty, therefore, for uttering the 'killing word' against his brother, the sneaky trickster (greenseer figure like Will, Littlefinger, Euron, etc.) attempts to cheat the taboo -- appealing to the 'letter' rather than the 'spirit' of the law -- by as you say 'deforming' the original expression into a euphemism in order to somehow make it more palatable to the gods and escape detection.  'I didn't say mordieu; I said morbleu!'  'I didn't kill my brother; the Others did it...'  Hence, in the Prologue we have Will up the sentinel 'whispering a prayer to the nameless gods of the wood' fooling us into thinking that this is a benign prayer for the protection of mankind, rather than a malignant death wish directed against his brother, summoning those very demons.  

Similarly, Victarion, overcome with his boiling hatred, resentment and jealousy towards his brother Euron, broods on how he can get around the kinslaying taboo by twisting the 'spirit' to suit the 'letter'.  For example, he reasons that perhaps he can thwart the curse of the kinslayer by deferring the killing to another.  Thus, the 'killing word' is a method of killing someone else in absentia -- the head that says the words to all appearances (artificially) divorced from the hand that swings the sword.  Given that this is a sword swung indirectly rather than directly by the real perpetrator, we can say that the 'killing word' is a sword without a hilt.  

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A Feast for Crows - The Reaver

He drank in the darkness, brooding on his brother. If I do not strike the blow with mine own hand, am I still a kinslayer? Victarion feared no man, but the Drowned God's curse gave him pause. If another strikes him down at my command, will his blood still stain my hands? Aeron Damphair would know the answer, but the priest was somewhere back on the Iron Islands, still hoping to raise the ironborn against their new-crowned king. Nute the Barber can shave a man with a thrown axe from twenty yards away. And none of Euron's mongrels could stand against Wulfe One-Ear or Andrik the Unsmiling. Any of them could do it. But what a man can do and what a man will do are two different things, he knew.

"Euron's blasphemies will bring down the Drowned God's wroth upon us all," Aeron had prophesied, back on Old Wyk. "We must stop him, brother. We are still of Balon's blood, are we not?"

'If another strikes him down at my command, will his blood still stain my hands?'

Similarly, referring to the events in the Prologue, we might ask, 'If an Other struck him down at Will's command, will Waymar's blood still stain Will's hands?'

The Prologue seems to imply that the answer to this question is 'yes.'  Not only does GRRM highlight the 'sticky sap' on Will's hands and face like blood, he clearly draws a symbolic relationship between on the one hand this 'sticky sap' covering Will in the tree as he pronounced the death sentence on his brother, and on the other hand ;)  the 'sticky' bloodstained gloves of Waymar with which Will literally gets smeared in his brother's blood at the end, when the wighted Waymar takes his revenge.  The moral of the story:  playing cheeky games with language, essentially 'mocking' the spirit of the law, invariably draws a 'counter-mocking' response.

Another who plays these linguistic games ('deformation of the word' -- and 'defamation'!) in order to slay his brother or sister at a distance, weaseling out of the responsibility for his treacherous actions via his 'weasel words' is Littlefinger (Thanks @Pain killer Jane for drawing my attention to 'weasels'!).  In fact, Littlefinger's primary currency and weapon is the word -- specifically the perversion thereof.  Misinformation as sword.  And then this important line, 'a harp can be as dangerous as a sword', whereby words and swords are given equal weight:

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A Storm of Swords - Sansa VI

"Gentle, pious, good-hearted Willas Tyrell. Be grateful you were spared, he would have bored you spitless. The old woman is not boring, though, I'll grant her that. A fearsome old harridan, and not near as frail as she pretends. When I came to Highgarden to dicker for Margaery's hand, she let her lord son bluster while she asked pointed questions about Joffrey's nature. I praised him to the skies, to be sure . . . whilst my men spread disturbing tales amongst Lord Tyrell's servants. That is how the game is played.

"I also planted the notion of Ser Loras taking the white. Not that I suggested it, that would have been too crude. But men in my party supplied grisly tales about how the mob had killed Ser Preston Greenfield and raped the Lady Lollys, and slipped a few silvers to Lord Tyrell's army of singers to sing of Ryam Redwyne, Serwyn of the Mirror Shield, and Prince Aemon the Dragonknight. A harp can be as dangerous as a sword, in the right hands.

 

As @Pain killer Jane has drawn to our attention, Littlefinger is an example of a 'blue falcon,' a derogatory euphemism used in the military to denote someone who betrays his soldier 'brothers', specifically by double-crossing them:

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From wiktionary:

blue falcon (plural blue falcons)

(US, military, euphemistic) buddy fucker, a supposed comrade whose actions harm his friends, often for his own benefit.  [quotations ▲]2013, Jeff Rose, Soldier of Finance: Take Charge of Your Money and Invest in Your Future, AMACOM Div American Mgmt Assn, ISBN 0814433294, 9780814433294 Invalid ISBN, page 26:

We had a term in the military for a soldier who was not a good Battle Buddy. He was a "Blue Falcon." That rather odd name is an attempt to clean up a much more graphic term. The initials for Blue Falco, "BF", were originally the first letters of a term I'll refrain from printing here. Let's just say that the "B" stood for "Buddy" and the "F" stood for a classic word of profanity. A BF was someone who screwed his buddies. We just called them Blue Falcons.

2007, David Axe, Army 101: Inside ROTC in a Time of War, Univ of South Carolina Press, page 31:

To them, he's a Blue Falcon, a derogatory euphemism for "buddy-fucker." Blue Falcons are great soldiers when the commander's watching. But they'll screw you in a heartbeat when nobody else is around.

See also[edit]

battle buddy

backstabber

Littlefinger is explicitly associated with the blue falcon symbolism by his association with the Arryns, particularly in the blue wax insignia of the falcon sealing the letter sent to Cat at Littlefinger's instigation in AGOT that got the whole charade rolling, with the ultimate end-goal of luring Ned south in order to get him killed.  According to the triad of 'trickster, dupe and prize', which I've recently coined, Littlefinger is the trickster manipulating Lysa and Cat, the dupes, in order to reach Ned the target.  In terms of Norse mythology, Loki (the trickster) talking ('killing word') the gullible Hodr (the dupe) into shooting the mistletoe arrow at his brother Baldr (the prize).  Fittingly, Littlefinger's poisonous letter arrives in a wooden box symbolising a coffin.  A letter from nobody symbolising the coffin Littlefinger has devised for some body!

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A Game of Thrones - Catelyn II

"Stay," Ned commanded him. His voice was grave. He looked at Catelyn. "What is it? My lady, you're shaking."

"I'm afraid," she admitted. She reached out and took the letter in trembling hands. The furs dropped away from her nakedness, forgotten. In the blue wax was the moon-and-falcon seal of House Arryn. "It's from Lysa." Catelyn looked at her husband. "It will not make us glad," she told him. "There is grief in this message, Ned. I can feel it."

Ned frowned, his face darkening. "Open it."

Cat then breaks the seal, so she functions in the role of the crone who was possibly manipulated by a trickster into opening the door that let the first raven into the world.

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But to rest with the theme of the "killing word", it seems that the word is a name; some examples (non exhaustive) : 

- Alliser Thorne kills the new watchers by giving them new insulting name, like "lord Snow", "ser Pig", "Auroch". As Tyrion explain to Jon : 

 
Quote

 

"Don't call me Lord Snow."
The dwarf lifted an eyebrow. "Would you rather be called the Imp? Let them see that their words can cut you, and you'll never be free of the mockery. If they want to give you a name, take it, make it your own. Then they can't hurt you with it anymore."(Jon III, AGOT)

 

- Ned Stark calling "Lady" before he sacrifices her, and looking in her eyes

- Reverse : Bran giving a name to his direwolf after the direwolf gave him life

- Yoren "killing" Arya by cuting her hairs (the hairs are blown by the wind and arrive where Ned Stark was beheaded) and giving her a new name "Arry" (plus, with her transformation to a boy, Arya lives a kind of "castration", I mean that she loose her feminine identity and she isn't comfortable with that)

- Littlefinger killing Sansa Stark and giving her a new name Alayne Stone. 

- Tyrion killing his father when Tywin pronounces the word "whore", a manner to call women even if they aren't whore like Tysha (who just committed the horrible crime to change her social condition !)

- The literaly Rains of Castamere. 

These are all excellent examples of names being used either to kill or to ward against harm.  What did you mean by the Rains of Castamere?  Do you mean the Lannisters using the song as a weapon to strike fear into their enemies?

Another prime example of the 'killing word' used to transform a person is Theon's transformation into Reek.

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A Dance with Dragons - Reek II

I have come this way before. It was a dangerous thought, and he regretted it at once. "No," he said, "no, that was some other man, that was before you knew your name." His name was Reek. He had to remember that. Reek, Reek, it rhymes with leek.

When that other man had come this way, an army had followed close behind him, the great host of the north riding to war beneath the grey-and-white banners of House Stark. Reek rode alone, clutching a peace banner on a pinewood staff. When that other man had come this way, he had been mounted on a courser, swift and spirited. Reek rode a broken-down stot, all skin and bone and ribs, and he rode her slowly for fear he might fall off. The other man had been a good rider, but Reek was uneasy on horseback. It had been so long. He was no rider. He was not even a man. He was Lord Ramsay's creature, lower than a dog, a worm in human skin. "You will pretend to be a prince," Lord Ramsay told him last night, as Reek was soaking in a tub of scalding water, "but we know the truth. You're Reek. You'll always be Reek, no matter how sweet you smell. Your nose may lie to you. Remember your name. Remember who you are."

"Reek," he said. "Your Reek."

Then at the heart tree Reek prays for a sword but instead has received back his name 'Theon', uttered from the weirwood by Bran.  So again we have a name that is equivalent to a sword.  

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A Dance with Dragons - A Ghost in Winterfell

The night was windless, the snow drifting straight down out of a cold black sky, yet the leaves of the heart tree were rustling his name. "Theon," they seemed to whisper, "Theon."

The old gods, he thought. They know me. They know my name. I was Theon of House Greyjoy. I was a ward of Eddard Stark, a friend and brother to his children. "Please." He fell to his knees. "A sword, that's all I ask. Let me die as Theon, not as Reek." Tears trickled down his cheeks, impossibly warm. "I was ironborn. A son … a son of Pyke, of the islands."

A leaf drifted down from above, brushed his brow, and landed in the pool. It floated on the water, red, five-fingered, like a bloody hand. "… Bran," the tree murmured.

 

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On 4/17/2017 at 4:21 PM, ravenous reader said:

Littlefinger is the trickster manipulating Lysa and Cat, the dupes, in order to reach Ned the target.  In terms of Norse mythology, Loki (the trickster) talking ('killing word') the gullible Hodr (the dupe) into shooting the mistletoe arrow at his brother Baldr (the prize).

Ah but we have several actors in this situation as well. Cat is a dupe but in terms of mythology, she is Frigg, who went around asking everything to shed tears for Baldr in order to get him back from Loki's daughter Hel (can be consider a bargain with the devil to get someone back from death). <--------That seems the likely way for the Garth or the greenseer that escaping the prison/weirwood net---------

However, Frigg was unsuccessful because the giantess, named Thanks, refused to cry for Baldr. Thanks is sometimes said to be Loki in disguise. Thanks therefore is Lysa and Littlefinger which makes sense since Littlefinger helped Lysa kill Jon Arryn in the first place.  

@Blue Tiger I was wondering if you had any ideas on where I could find the etymology of the giantess Thanks. It couldn't be related to the expression for Thank You. Originally, Thanks is the noun of the verb To Think which is a strange evolution to go from a noun of a verb to an action that means 'to reward or to recompense." Anyway, any help will be appreciated and I will be thankful. 

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2 hours ago, Pain killer Jane said:

Ah but we have several actors in this situation as well. Cat is a dupe but in terms of mythology, she is Frigg, who went around asking everything to shed tears for Baldr in order to get him back from Loki's daughter Hel (can be consider a bargain with the devil to get someone back from death). <--------That seems the likely way for the Garth or the greenseer that escaping the prison/weirwood net---------

However, Frigg was unsuccessful because the giantess, named Thanks, refused to cry for Baldr. Thanks is sometimes said to be Loki in disguise. Thanks therefore is Lysa and Littlefinger which makes sense since Littlefinger helped Lysa kill Jon Arryn in the first place.

Hi PK, it's nice to see you around again :)

Great points as usual.  Can you elaborate a bit more on how you envision this 'bargain with the devil' playing out in terms of the greenseer escaping the fell clutches of the 'weirnet'?  

Talking about shedding tears for Baldr, Lysa is associated with the weeping woman Alyssa's tears as well as the Tears of Lys with which Jon Arryn was murdered.  So they are poisonous, 'crocodile tears' -- i.e. the absence of genuine mourning, and perhaps even traitorous.

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The World of Ice and Fire - The Vale: The Eyrie

It is worth remarking on the statue that stands in the Eyrie's godswood, a fine likeness of the weeping Alyssa Arryn. Legend holds that six thousand years ago, Alyssa saw her husband, brothers, and sons all slain, and that she never shed a tear. Therefore, the gods punished her by not allowing her to rest until her tears fell upon the Vale below. The great waterfall that tumbles from the Giant's Lance is known as Alyssa's Tears, for the waters pour from such a height that they turn to mist long before they ever reach the ground.

Regarding our discussion about the weasels and how they may be related to the 'killing word', were you familiar with the idiom 'weasel words'..?!

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From:  http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/weasel-words.html

Ambiguous or quibbling speech.

Origin

It has long been a widespread belief that weasels suck the yolks from bird's eggs, leaving only the empty shell. This belief is the basis of the term 'weasel words', used to describe statements that have had the life sucked out of them. The expression refers to words that are added to make a statement sound more legitimate and impressive but which are in fact unsubstantiated and meaningless. Examples of weasel words are 'people say that...', 'studies show that...', 'up to 50% or more...'.

There is now some doubt amongst naturalists as to whether weasels do suck eggs. The tiny mammals are certainly ferocious and, pound for pound, amongst the most dangerous predators on the planet, being easily able to kill an entire coopful of chickens that are hundreds of times their weight. They have a bad reputation with country dwellers but the egg-sucking behaviour is unproven. Whether or not they actually suck eggs, Shakespeare and his contemporaries believed they did. The Bard didn't coin the expression 'weasel words', but he came very close, when he made two references to the supposed habits of weasels:

The weazel Scot Comes sneaking, and so sucks the princoly egg. -Henry V, 1598

I can suck melancholy out of a song, as a weazel sucks eggs. - As You Like It, 1600

That's as close as we get to the actual phrase in the Tudor period and it wasn't until the turn of the 20th century in the USA that the phrase 'weasel words' first occurred in print. In 1900, Stewart Chaplin published a story in The Century Illustrated Magazine titled Stained Glass Political Platform, which contains this exchange:

"I am the chairman of your committee on platform"... "And like most platforms," continued St. John, "it contains plenty of what I call weasel words."
"And what may weasel words be?"
"Why, weasel words are words that suck all the life out of the words next to them, just as a weasel sucks an egg and leaves the shell."

In 1910, Theodore Roosevelt, then Colonel Roosevelt, was reported in various US newspapers as saying that he liked the Republican state platform because it contained no "weasel words". In September 1916, the New York Times published a piece in which Roosevelt refuted the notion that he had stolen the phrase from Chaplin and claimed to have coined it independently in 1879:

Colonel Roosevelt, on his way here this morning from Portland, Me., told a Times reporter how he happened to use the expression "weasel words" in describing some of President Wilson's utterances months ago. After the expression had been widely quoted, somebody discovered that it had been used years ago by the writer of a magazine article in the Century Magazine, and the Colonel was charged with having plagiarized the writer.
"About thirty-seven years ago." Colonel Roosevelt said in talking of the origin of the expression. "I was going up a mountain in the Maine woods in a carriage, driven by Dave Sewall. We saw an old man along the roadside. When we passed Dave Sewall said:
"That there man can do a lot of funny things with this language of ours. He can take a word and weasel it around and suck the meat out of it like a weasel sucks the meat out of an egg, until it don't mean anything at all. The Colonel said the expression [weasel words] occurred to him when he read some of President Wilson's notes.

It is possible that [there are some good weasel words for you] Roosevelt coined the expression but, of course, his later recollections aren't any kind of proof of that. If circumstantial evidence counts for anything then Roosevelt's etymological track record might be called into account. In 1900, he described the phrase 'speak softly and carry a big stick' as a 'West African proverb'. Where he got that idea from is unclear - there's certainly no evidence to support it.

I can't finish without adding the old jest about how to tell a weasel from a stoat - 'one is weasily recognized, the other is stoatally different'.

 

Another website about the same:  https://www.thoughtco.com/weasel-word-1692604

A weasel word is a modifying word that undermines or contradicts the meaning of the word, phrase, or clause it accompanies, such as "genuine replica." Also known as a weaselism.

More broadly, weasel word may refer to any word that's used with the intention to mislead or misinform.

Could the Arryn slogan 'as high as honor' be an example of weasel words? (ETA:  since as you pointed out to me in PM the man who fights with honor is the same who plummets through the moondoor, weighed down by armor and honor alike, leaving the only ones without honor 'on high'...)

In addition to the quote you showed me about Sam swallowing a weasel who swallows his words, I found another quote relating weasels to skinchangers:

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 Storm of Swords - Jon I

These are a free folk indeed, Jon saw. Rattleshirt might lead them, but none of them were shy in talking back to him.

The wildling leader fixed him with an unfriendly stare. "Might be you fooled these others, crow, but don't think you'll be fooling Mance. He'll take one look a' you and know you're false. And when he does, I'll make a cloak o' your wolf there, and open your soft boy's belly and sew a weasel up inside."

Jon's sword hand opened and closed, flexing the burned fingers beneath the glove, but Longspear Ryk only laughed. "And where would you find a weasel in the snow?"

Mance warns Jon not to play them false or they'll skin his wolf and sew a weasel up inside Jon, both rather gruesome allusions to skinchanging.  In other words, if Jon is using weasel words to fool the wildlings, the message is that his words will come back to haunt him, and he will literally be made to swallow, or more accurately to 'stomach,' his own 'weaselisms'!  It's very fitting in the Prologue that Will, the weasel figure to whom I've attributed the conjuring of the 'killing word' against his brother Waymar, is killed by strangulation -- literally having the words crushed out of him, or being suffocated by his own weasel words, the wighted Waymar representing the embodiment of Will's own treacherous words.  Fittingly, Waymar wears the sable coat which is a close relative of the weasel in the family Mustelidae -- Wighted Waymar is a weasel word on the loose!

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A Clash of Kings - Jon I

"If it happens that we're all butchered out there, I mean for my successor to know where and how we died."

Talk of butchery reduced Samwell Tarly to speechlessness. Mormont leaned forward. "Tarly, when I was a lad half your age, my lady mother told me that if I stood about with my mouth open, a weasel was like to mistake it for his lair and run down my throat. If you have something to say, say it. Otherwise, beware of weasels." He waved a brusque dismissal. "Off with you, I'm too busy for folly. No doubt the maester has some work you can do."

Sam swallowed, stepped back, and scurried out so quickly he almost tripped over the rushes.

 

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2 hours ago, ravenous reader said:

Great points as usual.  Can you elaborate a bit more on how you envision this 'bargain with the devil' playing out in terms of the greenseer escaping the fell clutches of the 'weirnet'?  

Well we have instances of sacrifice people coming back and becoming a menace  i.e. Nyssa Nyssa falling down and becoming the Nagga who drowned islands in her wroth, Dany sacrificing herself to give birth to dragons but becoming a dragon herself, Cat becoming the Hang Woman. 

And one of the most prominent sacrifice scenes is the one Bran witnesses through weirwood net of the man having a breaded guy and a woman with silver hair cutting the throat. The companion scene to that sacrifice is the tale of Lann the Clever buttering himself up and squeezing through the rock (Lann would be Baldr in this instance and Lann is said to be the son of either Florys the Fox or Rowen Gold-Tree. Since the Others are said to come from trees, and Lann's descendant, Jaime is said to turn into an Other, I would say that Lann is a good candidate for a resurrected menace) combined with the scene that Stannis witnesses in the fire with the ash turning into the falling snow. 

 

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7 hours ago, ravenous reader said:

Could the Arryn slogan 'as high as honor' be an example of weasel words? (ETA:  since as you pointed out to me in PM the man who fights with honor is the same who plummets through the moondoor, weighed down by armor and honor alike, leaving the only ones without honor 'on high'...)

I never heard of that idiom. My first thought about weasel words along with the explanation you provided was The Lord of the Crossing game, the Walders taught Bran and Rickon since it boils down to the modifier "Mayhaps". 

I agree that the Arryn slogan are weasel words for the same reason you mentioned. The slogan is an inversion.  

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1 hour ago, ravenous reader said:

Mance warns Jon not to play them false or they'll skin his wolf and sew a weasel up inside Jon, both rather gruesome allusions to skinchanging.  In other words, if Jon is using weasel words to fool the wildlings, the message is that his words will come back to haunt him, and he will literally be made to swallow, or more accurately to 'stomach,' his own 'weaselisms'!  It's very fitting in the Prologue that Will, the weasel figure to whom I've attributed the conjuring of the 'killing word' against his brother Waymar, is killed by strangulation -- literally having the words crushed out of him, or being suffocated by his own weasel words, the wighted Waymar representing the embodiment of Will's own treacherous words.  Fittingly, Waymar wears the sable coat which is a close relative of the weasel in the family Mustelidae -- Wighted Waymar is a weasel word on the loose!

I agree and nice catch. It confirms what you said that words are a pale imitation of life. 

Side Note: When Arya names herself Weasel, she is given a grey dress like a maester which to me means that the Grey Knights of the Mind are similar to Snow Knights of the Heart of Winter. 

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18 hours ago, Pain killer Jane said:

I never heard of that idiom. My first thought about weasel words along with the explanation you provided was The Lord of the Crossing game, the Walders taught Bran and Rickon since it boils down to the modifier "Mayhaps". 

I agree that the Arryn slogan are weasel words for the same reason you mentioned. The slogan is an inversion.  

The 'mayhaps' game of the crossing is a great example!  Indeed, the 'weasel word' is a sneaky qualifier slipped into the discourse almost unnoticed,  that is supposed to give the person uttering it -- i.e. the weasel -- sufficient 'wriggle room' to later bend the meaning -- 'plausible deniability' -- so that he escapes accountability, and always comes out on top.  Don't the Freys finagle it, so that they always win the game?

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A Clash of Kings - Bran I

Both of them were called Walder Frey. Big Walder said there were bunches of Walders at the Twins, all named after the boys' grandfather, Lord Walder Frey. "We have our own names at Winterfell," Rickon told them haughtily when he heard that.

The way their game was played, you laid the log across the water, and one player stood in the middle with the stick. He was the lord of the crossing, and when one of the other players came up, he had to say, "I am the lord of the crossing, who goes there?" And the other player had to make up a speech about who they were and why they should be allowed to cross. The lord could make them swear oaths and answer questions. They didn't have to tell the truth, but the oaths were binding unless they said "Mayhaps," so the trick was to say "Mayhaps" so the lord of the crossing didn't notice. Then you could try and knock the lord into the water and you got to be lord of the crossing, but only if you'd said "Mayhaps." Otherwise you were out of the game. The lord got to knock anyone in the water anytime he pleased, and he was the only one who got to use a stick.

In practice, the game seemed to come down to mostly shoving, hitting, and falling into the water, along with a lot of loud arguments about whether or not someone had said "Mayhaps." Little Walder was lord of the crossing more often than not.

So, the lesson of 'mayhaps' is a recipe for breaking guest right and being in effect a 'blue falcon'!

Regarding the Arryn words, they're not 'weasel words' in the classic sense of using a modifier; nevertheless, as demonstrated by the examples in the two articles I linked, weasel words behave like oxymorons tending to 'suck the meaning out of', and invalidate, the rest of the phrase.  In this way, the Arryn words are at best a contradiction, and at worst a lie.  An oath of fealty which breaks in the same uttering thereof, if that makes sense!

P.S.  Now I have this image of Littlefinger, having killed all the birds in the chicken coop (the Eyrie), sucking out the yolk of the eggs, sitting on a big pile of white eggshells up in the eagle's nest.  Like his son Robin (who like him also resembles a weasel), he prefers eggs to porridge...

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On 4/20/2017 at 5:26 PM, Pain killer Jane said:

Side Note: When Arya names herself Weasel, she is given a grey dress like a maester which to me means that the Grey Knights of the Mind are similar to Snow Knights of the Heart of Winter. 

How are you getting from the 'grey knights' to the 'snow knights'..? (via ash and whitewashing?)

I like the grey-dress catch.  Cat and Lady Dustin both refer to the maesters as 'grey rats' which are related to weasels and squirrels -- the Ratatoskr figure who ties in to your idea of the cheeky messenger.  It's ironic that Lady Dustin scoffs at  'rats' since she also wears a full sable coat and resembles one of the Mustelids herself -- perhaps a ferret with her nose for ferreting out the secrets of the crypt, her 'feral' countenance, sharp features and sharp mind!

On 4/20/2017 at 4:56 PM, Pain killer Jane said:

Well we have instances of sacrifice people coming back and becoming a menace  i.e. Nyssa Nyssa falling down and becoming the Nagga who drowned islands in her wroth, Dany sacrificing herself to give birth to dragons but becoming a dragon herself, Cat becoming the Hang Woman. 

Yes, but who makes 'the deal' with whom?  I'm not sure you can say someone forcibly sacrificed makes a deal with the devil.  Relating the dynamic to the Prologue, Will is the one who makes a deal with the devil (via the whispered prayer to the 'nameless gods of the woods'), not Waymar.  I'm not sure what or who re-animated Waymar, but Will was also surprised by it -- that wasn't part of the 'deal'!

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And one of the most prominent sacrifice scenes is the one Bran witnesses through weirwood net of the man having a breaded guy and a woman with silver hair cutting the throat.

I agree.  That scene holds the mystery to House Stark -- the taboo lying at the heart of the heart tree.

How is the Lann scene a companion scene to that?  Are you referring to the sacrifice to the tree facilitating entrance to the tree, being taken up in the weirnet?  

I still think there's a distinction between 'trickster' and 'dupe'.  The man sacrificed at the heart tree seems to be the latter; Lann one of the former.

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The companion scene to that sacrifice is the tale of Lann the Clever buttering himself up and squeezing through the rock (Lann would be Baldr in this instance and Lann is said to be the son of either Florys the Fox or Rowen Gold-Tree. Since the Others are said to come from trees, and Lann's descendant, Jaime is said to turn into an Other, I would say that Lann is a good candidate for a resurrected menace) combined with the scene that Stannis witnesses in the fire with the ash turning into the falling snow. 

So Lann is like Baldr captured in the underworld/rock/tree?

I like the connection of the Lannisters to the trees -- bravo!  Besides Jaime's 'otherization,' there's also Tyrion being turned into a 'revenant':

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A Feast for Crows - Jaime III

Harrenhal must be held, though, and Baelor Butthole here is the man that Cersei chose to hold it. "This castle has an ill repute," he warned him, "and one that's well deserved. It's said that Harren and his sons still walk the halls by night, afire. Those who look upon them burst into flame."

"I fear no shade, ser. It is written in The Seven-Pointed Star that spirits, wights, and revenants cannot harm a pious man, so long as he is armored in his faith."

"Then armor yourself in faith, by all means, but wear a suit of mail and plate as well. Every man who holds this castle seems to come to a bad end. The Mountain, the Goat, even my father . . ."

 

A Dance with Dragons - Tyrion V

The sudden cold hit Tyrion like a hammer. As he sank he felt a stone hand fumbling at his face. Another closed around his arm, dragging him down into darkness. Blind, his nose full of river, choking, sinking, he kicked and twisted and fought to pry the clutching fingers off his arm, but the stone fingers were unyielding. Air bubbled from his lips. The world was black and growing blacker. He could not breathe.

There are worse ways to die than drowning. And if truth be told, he had perished long ago, back in King's Landing. It was only his revenant who remained, the small vengeful ghost who throttled Shae and put a crossbow bolt through the great Lord Tywin's bowels. No man would mourn the thing that he'd become. I'll haunt the Seven Kingdoms, he thought, sinking deeper. They would not love me living, so let them dread me dead.

When he opened his mouth to curse them all, black water filled his lungs, and the dark closed in around him.

The greensee 'drowning' motif, together with the talk of Lord Tywin's bowels (which shit gold) reminds me of the watery bowels of Casterly Rock like in Jaime's dream.  What kind of beast lurks in those waters?

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A Storm of Swords - Jaime VI

"Sister!" he shouted. "Stay with me. Stay!" There was no reply but the soft sound of retreating footsteps.

Brienne moved her longsword back and forth, watching the silvery flames shift and shimmer. Beneath her feet, a reflection of the burning blade shone on the surface of the flat black water. She was as tall and strong as he remembered, yet it seemed to Jaime that she had more of a woman's shape now.

"Do they keep a bear down here?" Brienne was moving, slow and wary, sword to hand; step, turn, and listen. Each step made a little splash. "A cave lion? Direwolves? Some bear? Tell me, Jaime. What lives here? What lives in the darkness?"

 

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13 hours ago, ravenous reader said:

The 'mayhaps' game of the crossing is a great example!  Indeed, the 'weasel word' is a sneaky qualifier slipped into the discourse almost unnoticed,  that is supposed to give the person uttering it -- i.e. the weasel -- sufficient 'wriggle room' to later bend the meaning -- 'plausible deniability' -- so that he escapes accountability, and always comes out on top.  Don't the Freys finagle it, so that they always win the game?

So, the lesson of 'mayhaps' is a recipe for breaking guest right and being in effect a 'blue falcon'!

Regarding the Arryn words, they're not 'weasel words' in the classic sense of using a modifier; nevertheless, as demonstrated by the examples in the two articles I linked, weasel words behave like oxymorons tending to 'suck the meaning out of', and invalidate, the rest of the phrase.  In this way, the Arryn words are at best a contradiction, and at worst a lie.  An oath of fealty which breaks in the same uttering thereof, if that makes sense!

P.S.  Now I have this image of Littlefinger, having killed all the birds in the chicken coop (the Eyrie), sucking out the yolk of the eggs, sitting on a big pile of white eggshells up in the eagle's nest.  Like his son Robin (who like him also resembles a weasel), he prefers eggs to porridge...

 Yes I do think the Freys tried to rig the game to win. But like Merrett I think their luck has run out. 

Look at what Merrett Frey says to the Brotherhood

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Merrett could hardly think for the pounding in his head. "He shamed us, the whole realm was laughing, we had to cleanse the stain on our honor." His father had said all that and more.

"Maybe so. What do a bunch o' bloody peasants know about a lord's honor?" Yellow cloak wrapped the end of the rope around his hand three times. "We know some about murder, though."

Lord Walder here used avenging the his honor as a shield to justify the murders of the people at the Red Wedding. This is exactly what said about the meaning of Arryn's words having their meaning sucked out.  

As a side note: did you notice that Merrett as a weasely Frey should be named ferret? And there is also the added pun of his name being Merrett/Merit and him always complaining about not having any luck which in a meritocracy, luck is not valued. This goes back to our conversation about the abuse of meritocracy and nepotism.

And that image of Littlefinger is terrifying because it makes me imagine him looking like a cross between the vision of Patchface and Euron on his throne of skulls. 

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On 4/21/2017 at 7:54 PM, ravenous reader said:
On 4/20/2017 at 2:26 PM, Pain killer Jane said:

Side Note: When Arya names herself Weasel, she is given a grey dress like a maester which to me means that the Grey Knights of the Mind are similar to Snow Knights of the Heart of Winter. 

How are you getting from the 'grey knights' to the 'snow knights'..? (via ash and whitewashing?)

I like the grey-dress catch.  Cat and Lady Dustin both refer to the maesters as 'grey rats' which are related to weasels and squirrels -- the Ratatoskr figure who ties in to your idea of the cheeky messenger.  It's ironic that Lady Dustin scoffs at  'rats' since she also wears a full sable coat and resembles one of the Mustelids herself -- perhaps a ferret with her nose for ferreting out the secrets of the crypt, her 'feral' countenance, sharp features and sharp mind!

Yes I do think it is both the ash and the whitewashing.

Take a look at this 

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But Jaqen H'ghar still smiled. His garb was still ragged and filthy, but he had found time to wash and brush his hair. It streamed down across his shoulders, red and white and shiny, and Arya heard the girls giggling to each other in admiration.

I should have let the fire have them. Gendry said to, I should have listened. If she hadn't thrown them that axe they'd all be dead. For a moment she was afraid, but they rode past her without a flicker of interest. Only Jaqen H'ghar so much as glanced in her direction, and his eyes passed right over her. He does not know me, she thought. Arry was a fierce little boy with a sword, and I'm just a grey mouse girl with a pail.

She spent the rest of that day scrubbing steps inside the Wailing Tower. By evenfall her hands were raw and bleeding and her arms so sore they trembled when she lugged the pail back to the cellar. Too tired even for food, Arya begged Weese's pardons and crawled into her straw to sleep. "Weese," she yawned. "Dunsen, Chiswyck, Polliver, Raff the Sweetling. The Tickler and the Hound. Ser Gregor, Ser Amory, Ser Ilyn, Ser Meryn, King Joffrey, Queen Cersei." She thought she might add three more names to her prayer, but she was too tired to decide tonight.

Jaqen here only washes and brushes his hair that is often said to allude to weirwoods and the washing the hair is a reference to Lann the clever stealing the sunlight to make his hair gold. 

Arya says she is a grey mouse girl with a pail and later after washing steps (they aren't serpentine steps but they Arya realizes that the tower wails only because the wind blows through it kind of like how the rustling of leaves are the whispers of the gods in the trees). And Arya runs messages like a Measter which is their primary function in a lord's castle and Lady Dustin cites that function as the one in which can do the most harm.

ETA: The reason why I mention that Arya is whitewashing the Wailing Tower, is because it mimics a weirwood or Hearttree is by the similarity of the howling and whispering of the Old Gods. Whispers are often times gossip and are sometimes dismissed by Measters, as seen with Luwin and Bran's dreams and outright whitewashing as Measter Pycell does with the many corrections about gossip regarding Johanna Lannister. And while yes gossip can be considered slander, at its core whitewashing and slander are two sides of lying. Even their actions are the same, whitewashing is done by flinging buckets of whitewash and slander is called mud-slinging or slinging buckets of mud. 

side note: Lady Dustin is turned into a fox by the torches at Jeyne and Ramsey's marriage. 

And I love that you mentioned Cat because one of the first things we learn about Cat is that during the war she scourged the kitchens for gossip and news. That is how Cat learned Lady Ashara Dayne's name at Winterfell after the war, which is something Arya does in the same chapter in Harrenhal and then later on as a Faceless Apprentice. 

But not to digress, since the Others are products of the Old Gods in the trees then I think that Measters and the Others are related. There has to be a reason why we have Bran, a broken boy wedding a tree and the Measter's being called the pets of another broken boy.

ETA: And why Shagga of the Stone Crow (Grey Crows) calls Tyrion's guides the half-man's pets when Tyrion told him how to conduct Guerrilla Warfare in the Kingswood. (Btw did you catch that Shagga son of Dolf is alluding to Shaggy Dog, Rickon's direwolf? Since Dolf is the German Root word Olf, Wolf. 

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3 hours ago, ravenous reader said:
On 4/20/2017 at 2:26 PM, Pain killer Jane said:

Side Note: When Arya names herself Weasel, she is given a grey dress like a maester which to me means that the Grey Knights of the Mind are similar to Snow Knights of the Heart of Winter. 

How are you getting from the 'grey knights' to the 'snow knights'..? (via ash and whitewashing?)

I like the grey-dress catch.  Cat and Lady Dustin both refer to the maesters as 'grey rats' which are related to weasels and squirrels -- the Ratatoskr figure who ties in to your idea of the cheeky messenger.  It's ironic that Lady Dustin scoffs at  'rats' since she also wears a full sable coat and resembles one of the Mustelids herself -- perhaps a ferret with her nose for ferreting out the secrets of the crypt, her 'feral' countenance, sharp features and sharp mind!

I think there is more than one deal. Will making the deal with the devil to kill Waymar but Waymar reanimating could perhaps be a deal. Think about it this way while the only thing we see of the wights is that are shambling creatures and therefore we consider them to be slaves but what if the wights are willing slaves. It could be as simple as the desiring not to die in that split second between life and death that is enough to bargain with.

If oaths can be broken why not deals. The killing word uttered by a blue falcon is treacherous and can not be trust. So why would the devil honor the contract? Its the reasoning Tyrion used to get rid of Janos Slynt and knew that Cersei would never say anything against the decision and it is reasoning Littlefinger used when he killed Dontos. 

3 hours ago, ravenous reader said:

How is the Lann scene a companion scene to that?  Are you referring to the sacrifice to the tree facilitating entrance to the tree, being taken up in the weirnet?  

I still think there's a distinction between 'trickster' and 'dupe'.  The man sacrificed at the heart tree seems to be the latter; Lann one of the former.

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The companion scene to that sacrifice is the tale of Lann the Clever buttering himself up and squeezing through the rock (Lann would be Baldr in this instance and Lann is said to be the son of either Florys the Fox or Rowen Gold-Tree. Since the Others are said to come from trees, and Lann's descendant, Jaime is said to turn into an Other, I would say that Lann is a good candidate for a resurrected menace) combined with the scene that Stannis witnesses in the fire with the ash turning into the falling snow. 

So Lann is like Baldr captured in the underworld/rock/tree?

This is where I need to analyze more. I consider Lann as both Baldr and Loki since as a result both are held prisoner; Baldr by Hel and Loki chained with the entrails of his son with poison dripping on his face for eternity. But Loki while being a trickster is also a dupe since his scheme was revealed and then was subsequently punished for it and the dupe Hodr was punished as well by his own father having a child with another woman and having that child seek revenge on Hodr for Baldr's death. I don't consider to Hodr to be an innocent dupe either since they were playing a game and what person doesn't want to win the game. (That longing and desire of winning is something repeated over and over again by Bran especially in the conjunction with the games and sword fighting. Even the Walders are not innocent, Bran comments that they are hungry for honor when he talks about the quartering of their coats.)

Mostly I think the man in the sacrifice scene went in as Baldr but came out as Lann/Loki.

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4 hours ago, ravenous reader said:

 

I like the connection of the Lannisters to the trees -- bravo!  Besides Jaime's 'otherization,' there's also Tyrion being turned into a 'revenant':

The greensee 'drowning' motif, together with the talk of Lord Tywin's bowels (which shit gold) reminds me of the watery bowels of Casterly Rock like in Jaime's dream.  What kind of beast lurks in those waters?

 

Nice catch on Tyrion. I completely forgot about that part. 

 I never thought about the scene like that and it would make sense since Tyrion was also in charge of the bowels of Casterly Rock. 

In terms of the beast, I wonder if it has to do with the legend about the dragon under Winterfell since the crypts of Winterfell are also filled with water. Or was it the dragon eggs that were laid by Queen Alysane's dragon? Her dragon's name escapes me. 

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On 4/17/2017 at 4:21 PM, ravenous reader said:

As @Pain killer Jane has drawn to our attention, Littlefinger is an example of a 'blue falcon,' a derogatory euphemism used in the military to denote someone who betrays his soldier 'brothers', specifically by double-crossing them:

To go back to this, I found this recently.

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Tyrion sighed. "Who's the traitor today?"

The eunuch handed him a scroll. "So much villainy, it sings a sad song for our age. Did honor die with our fathers?"

"My father is not dead yet." Tyrion scanned the list. "I know some of these names. These are rich men. Traders, merchants, craftsmen. Why should they conspire against us?"

"It seems they believe that Lord Stannis must win, and wish to share his victory. They call themselves the Antler Men, after the crowned stag."

"Someone should tell them that Stannis changed his sigil. Then they can be the Hot Hearts." It was no matter for jests, though; it appeared that these Antler Men had armed several hundred followers, to seize the Old Gate once battle was joined, and admit the enemy to the city. Among the names on the list was the master armorer Salloreon. "I suppose this means I won't be getting that terrifying helm with the demon horns," Tyrion complained as he scrawled the order for the man's arrest.

-aCoK, Tyrion XI

This ties the Antler Men to treachery making them Blue Falcons. They also have the element of self-fulfilling prophecy since Varys says they Believe he must in the sense that it was preordained that Stannis would win and therefore they wish to celebrate his victory, so they planned to actively make that victory come true.

In terms of the Blue Falcons and the Antler Men (this is pointing at the Green Men/Horned Lords and Littlefinger since these are the people he works with), I think there is a pun here between the word Trader and Traitor and the evidence for that is in the conversation between Salloreon and Tyrion. Salloreon is extremely offended when he is told to make the links for the chain for the Blackwater. Salloreon considers himself above the common blacksmith and I would say he probably feels that he is betraying his artistic self. We all understand that feeling especially on the forums, where we pour our time and minds into our analysis and we experience pride when we receive feed back. That is as common a feeling as hunger.

However, oftentimes in the our real world, a person that sells their skills for a monetary value is viewed as a sellout, a whore, and betraying the craft. But the rise of the tradersmen, merchants, craftsmen are the middle class and needed for social mobility as can be seen in Bronn, a sellsword becoming a Lord, Jeyne Westerling's Spicer side of the family originally being merchants and in just a few generations someone of their blood becoming a Queen which I think is the shadow reason behind the Red Wedding.

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"He is not reasonable," said Catelyn. "He is proud, and prickly to a fault. You know that. He wanted to be grandfather to a king. You will not appease him with the offer of two hoary old brigands and the second son of the fattest man in the Seven Kingdoms. Not only have you broken your oath, but you've slighted the honor of the Twins by choosing a bride from a lesser house."

Robb bristled at that. "The Westerlings are better blood than the Freys. They're an ancient line, descended from the First Men. The Kings of the Rock sometimes wed Westerlings before the Conquest, and there was another Jeyne Westerling who was queen to King Maegor three hundred years ago."

"All of which will only salt Lord Walder's wounds. It has always rankled him that older houses look down on the Freys as upstarts. 

-Catelyn II, aSoS 

Side Note: The Frey's family ancestor preformed a service for his lord, making the Frey's descendants of a tradesmen. And thus with Robb, Walder Frey had a chance for his blood to become kings but since they have awful luck, Jeyne Westerling with the blood of Traders and Merchants and newly made lords became queen instead.  

Spoiler

I also think this is one of the reasons why in the mummer's version, Jeyne was changed to Tulisa Meagyr since the families behind the Black Walls of Old Volantis, are dragon-blooded merchant/sellswords since it was first a military garrison and then a city because of the merchants. And look at the similarity in the spelling of Meagyr and Maegor and the fact that a Jeyne Westerling was married to Maegor. 

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Hey @ravenous reader   :D

Awesome OP, great work as always.  I love how nicely this works with the archetypal struggle of brother v brother in the series highlighted in @Crowfoods Daughter's essay, and your breakdown of how the mocking and counter-mocking plays into this and ultimately has a deciding factor in the poetic justice handed out is superb.  Having studied the prologue with yourself and Evita previously in the Bran’s Growing Powers thread this proves just how much progress has been made on this subject within the forum in the last year or so, a real collaborative effort, well done to those involved [Crowfoods Daughter, LmL and of course yourself]

Without being able to add a great deal of detail, I particularly liked how you have tied in the warlocks as greenseer parallels enacting their poetic revenge for the slights made against them.  All the while attempting to keep their hands clean by sending the Sorrowful Men to do their dirty work, it all fits rather nicely.  Considering the tale of Mathos Mallarawan’s wife and the fact this example is one of a fate almost worse than death [the humiliation of having to go naked] it reminded me of Jaime and his mocking of Bran when he offered him help atop the Broken Tower.  His cruel offer for Bran to ‘’Take my hand’’ only to push him to his [apparent] death certainly came back to haunt Jaime as more poetic justice is ‘handed’ out via him losing his sword hand, again a fate almost worse than death for the individual. 

Remembering a chat I had with Evita a while back there some other possibilities.  In ADWD Hosteen Frey underestimates the cold of the northern winter and mocks the northmen’s respect for such climates.  He also pays a high price…..

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‘No less a man than Hosteen Frey, who had been heard growling that he did not fear a little snow, lost an ear to frostbite.’

 Another character to suffer similar poetic justice is Weese, whose actions and threats towards Arya at Harrenhal come to fruition in his death…..

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‘’I saw you looking at me.’’  Weese wiped his fingers on the front of her shift.  Then he grabbed her throat with one hand and slapped her with the other. ‘’What did I tell you?’’  He slapped her again, backhand. ‘’Keep those eyes to yourself, or next time I’ll spoon one out and feed it to my bitch’’

After Jaqen had killed Weese, his spotted dog had ravaged his throat and face ripping mouthfuls of flesh from the dead man’s face in what seems to be more of this poetic revenge.

Theon occasionally muses that ‘the old gods are listening’ and fears the words of those who mock them, and he is not alone.  Lord Locke has similar thoughts and decides that in facing their wroth, they are all cursed. 

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“The gods have turned against us,” old Lord Locke was heard to say in the Great Hall.  “This is their wroth.  A wind as cold as hell and a snow that never ends.  We are cursed”

Great stuff RR, I shall return.

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On 4/18/2017 at 1:21 AM, ravenous reader said:

....As @Pain killer Jane has drawn to our attention, Littlefinger is an example of a 'blue falcon,' a derogatory euphemism used in the military to denote someone who betrays his soldier 'brothers', specifically by double-crossing them:

Littlefinger is explicitly associated with the blue falcon symbolism by his association with the Arryns, particularly in the blue wax insignia of the falcon sealing the letter sent to Cat at Littlefinger's instigation in AGOT that got the whole charade rolling, with the ultimate end-goal of luring Ned south in order to get him killed.  According to the triad of 'trickster, dupe and prize', which I've recently coined, Littlefinger is the trickster manipulating Lysa and Cat, the dupes, in order to reach Ned the target.  In terms of Norse mythology, Loki (the trickster) talking ('killing word') the gullible Hodr (the dupe) into shooting the mistletoe arrow at his brother Baldr (the prize).  Fittingly, Littlefinger's poisonous letter arrives in a wooden box symbolising a coffin.  A letter from nobody symbolising the coffin Littlefinger has devised for some body!...

I was reading AFFC last night and came across this

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AFOC - Alayne: So lovely. The snow-clad summit of the Giant’s Lance loomed above her, an immensity of stone and ice that dwarfed the castle perched upon its shoulder. Icicles twenty feet long draped the lip of the precipice where Alyssa’s Tears fell in summer. A falcon soared above the frozen waterfall, blue wings spread wide against the morning sky. Would that I had wings as well.

I'm really enjoying the wordplay in this thread!

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25 minutes ago, Prof. Cecily said:

I was reading AFFC last night and came across this

I'm really enjoying the wordplay in this thread!

Remember that Sansa swears to Cersei and the council that she does not have traitors' blood, so she can't be a blue falcon. 

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22 hours ago, Prof. Cecily said:

Do you mean this oath signifies Sansa is incapable of a double cross?

It was meant sarcastically. 

Let me preface this by saying that I like Sansa. That being said, she knowingly betrayed Arya at Darry because she didn't want Joffrey to stop loving her. Which she believed was to her benefit. And she knowingly/unknowingly betrayed her father and a lot of people killed.

So I do consider her a Blue Falcon at a very basic level. The basic level of the Blue Falcon gives us the baseline to argue the linear progressin of causality of Sansa's case, mainly to understand and hopefully predict how she will react to the knowledge that she is a Blue Falcon. We have seen the various effects that kind of knowledge has done to people; Tyrion, Littlefinger, Jaime, Brienne (the perceived notion that she is a Blue Falcon but she knows she isn't and that knowledge being out there is a catalyst for her journey), Theon, The Arryns. 

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