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The kissed-by-fire Lannisters: golden hair and the fire of the gods


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I’m currently working on an analysis of fire colour and what it may mean and I found myself going off on a not-particularly-relevant-for-my-analysis-but-cool tangent: golden hair is kissed by fire, much like red hair.

NB: for this to be a coherent essay, you will need to have familiarity with the symbolism outlined in  @LmL's Mythical Astronomy of Ice and Fire. Not just the physical second moon theory, but the symbolic motifs underpinning the conclusions, because I can't explain them all for length and potential accidental plagiarism reasons, and I will be referring to a lot of them.

We know that the key Lannisters in ASOIAF have golden-hair. Less focused upon is how this golden hair is related to the sun or touched by the sun in many scenes:

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“Leave her alone," Joffrey said. He stood over her, beautiful in blue wool and black leather, his golden curls shining in the sun like a crown. (Sansa I, AGOT)

"Their mothers were copper and honey, chestnut and butter, yet the babes were all black as ravens . . . and as ill-omened, it would seem. So when Joffrey, Myrcella, and Tommen slid out between your sister's thighs, each as golden as the sun, the truth was not hard to glimpse." (Varys talking about Robert’s children; Tyrion III, ACOK)

Jaime hugged her, his good hand pressing against the small of her back. He smelled of ash, but the morning sun was in his hair, giving it a golden glow. (Cersei I, AFFC)

The woman bared the queen's head first. Cersei sat as still as a stone statue as the shears clicked. Drifts of golden hair fell to the floor. She had not been allowed to tend it properly penned up in this cell, but even unwashed and tangled it shone where the sun touched it. My crown, the queen thought. They took the other crown away from me, and now they are stealing this one as well.  (Cersei II, ADWD)

 

There is a common myth that explains why this might be the case, relayed to us in the very first book:

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The Lannisters were an old family, tracing their descent back to Lann the Clever, a trickster from the Age of Heroes who was no doubt as legendary as Bran the Builder, though far more beloved of singers and taletellers. In the songs, Lann was the fellow who winkled the Casterlys out of Casterly Rock with no weapon but his wits, and stole gold from the sun to brighten his curly hair. (Eddard VI, AGOT)

Anyone familiar with LmL’s symbolism will recognise the familiar “challenging the gods” tale. On this occasion, Lann tricks the solar deity and acquires the fire of the gods to brighten his hair. Note how golden hair in the previous quote series is likened to having a crown of gold upon one’s head: so, by the process of symbolic transference, we can see that Lann the Clever crowned himself with the fire of the gods.

 

However, it would be a mistake from just this to refer to golden hair as “kissed by fire” in a similar way to red hair. So I searched “gold hair” in asearchoficeandfire.com and this is the complete list of characters with gold hair.

Lannisters: Joffrey, Cersei, Jaime, (formerly) Tywin, Tyrion (black and gold: Sansa III, ASOS)

The blood of Old Valyria (silver-gold): Daenerys, Rhaego (HotU vision), Aurane Waters, King Aerys II, Aerion Brightflame, Lysono Maar (Lyseni spymaster for Golden Company)

House Dondarrion (red-gold): Beric Dondarrion, Ser Manfred Dondarrion (The Hedge Knight)

Other: one of Victarion’s sacrifices (red-gold hair; Victarion, ADWD), Lynesse Hightower, Tyene Sand, Rown Goldtree

 

It appears that all of these characters have some sort of LmL’s Azor Ahai symbolism. The Lannisters Azor Ahai symbolism I've just touched upon. The Blood of Old Valyria appear to be descended from the Great Empire of the Dawn and they are magical dragon riders. House Dondarrion appears to exist solely to provide Azor Ahai metaphors: Beric is resurrected multiple times and fights with a burning sword whilst his House sigil is a lightning bolt that opportunely struck enemies when a member of House Dondarrion’s sword was broken in two.

 

The Other section will require a bit more detailing. I haven’t been able to classify the symbolism of the seven whores Victarion burns, so this is just spitballing really, but there is something there related to sevens. Seven is a number which appears to be associated with ice: think the Faith of the Seven, the sevens stars Hugor of the Hill pulled from the heavens to make a crown (there’s that fire of the gods as a crown thing again), there are seven ice-transformed beings in the Game of Thrones prologue (5 Others, Ser Waymar Royce and Will), seven towers of the Eyrie (an ice castle in the icy moon mountains), seven members of the Kingsguard etc etc. So seven women, trained in the seven sighs, are burned to death to appease both R’hllor and the Drowned God (and the Drowned God is likely a representative of the fire-transformed moon goddess/mermaid): is this a foreshadowing of fire transforming the ice moon? Anyway, if I am right about golden hair being kissed by fire, a woman with gold hair acting as a blood sacrifice is a symbolic parallel to Nissa Nissa.

 

The rest are a little more straightforward. House Hightower is one of a few very old Houses in the Reach, and it has been hypothesised that they may be descendants of the Great Empire of the Dawn. As such, this links them to Azor Ahai, the Bloodstone Emperor.

Tyene Sand is the daughter of a septa and Oberyn Martell. As such, she is the result of a union between ice and fire (remembering that the Faith is heavily associated with ice, and Oberyn with fire or the sun’s fire). Another notable blond-haired, blue-eyed woman is Brienne of Tarth, whose sigil contains golden suns and silver moons. So ice and fire, moon and sun, Nissa Nissa and Azor Ahai, and the result of their union. And where is Tyene now? She’s going to infiltrate the Great Sept of Baelor: the fire-transformed offspring is entering one of the symbols of the ice moon, as part of the endlessly cyclical nature of Martin’s symbolism.

 

Finally, we have Rowan Gold-tree and we are going to devote quite a bit of time to her. This is from the wiki:

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According to legend, she was so bereft when her lover left her for a rich rival that she wrapped an apple in her golden hair and planted it upon a hill. From the apple grew a tree whose bark, leaves and fruit were yellow gold. 

So, we have a love that is poisoned (by betrayal): check for “a love that kills/sex and swordplay”. An apple is a potent symbol of the fire of the gods: think of the fruit of the Tree of Good and Evil in the Garden of Eden that is frequently depicted as an apple, and this has been reflected in ASOIAF symbolism too. So check for more Azor Ahai symbolism.

This fire of the gods apple is then wrapped in Rowan’s kissed by golden fire hair, and out emerges Rowan’s tree burning with the sun’s golden fire. As LmL explains far better in his most recent essay, a rowan tree (which we could conceivably call this golden tree belonging to Rowan) is a type of ash tree, a famous mythological ash tree is Yggdrasil, and one of the most vivid callouts to Yggdrasil in the novels is the weirwood tree. Notably, the weirwood tree is crowned with fire, as its leaves are described as “bits of flame”, and it is a fantastic representation of the fire of the gods i.e. enormous magical power.

Why would Rowan plant a tree in response to being jilted? I would suggest that this is part of a jealous or vengeful Nissa Nissa motif: think Cersei jealous of Jaime's maleness and of the miller's wife in Theon's dream biting his penis off with her vagina teeth (Theon V, ACOK). In the case of Rowan, she brings down the fire of the gods (as a moon-meteor apple) infused with the sun's fire (her golden hair) to create a burning tree (the weirwood): otherwise known as the events that caused the Long Night. If her lover was a solar figure, that would then "kill" him, as the Long Night killed the sun.

What of Rowan Gold-tree’s family? Her father was Garth Greenhand, who planted the three intertwined weirwoods at Highgarden, sat in a throne of living wood (like a greenseer), acted as a Corn King and horned god and so on and so forth. All in all, he’s a pretty important guy, for his symbolism if nothing else: LmL devotes a long section of one of his essays to this. One sentence in particular jumped out to me in light of this essay is the following:

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Finally and somewhat humorously, we find that the greatest Gardener King in the history of the Reach was named Garth Goldenhand.

Note that if something golden is analogous to something being on fire, a golden hand would be a fiery hand, and a fiery hand is one of the many moon-meteor-explosion motifs. Why did this jump out to me?

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He looked at his stump and grimaced. I must do something about that. If the late Ser Jacelyn Bywater could wear an iron hand, he should have a gold one. Cersei might like that. A golden hand to stroke her golden hair, and hold her hard against me. (Jaime VIII, ASOS)

One of them wore the ruins of a crimson cloak, but Jaime hanged him with the rest. It felt good. This was justice. Make a habit of it, Lannister, and one day men might call you Goldenhand after all. Goldenhand the Just. (Jaime III, AFFC)

Kissed by golden fire, Jaime Lannister, who smells of ash (ash being a weirwood symbol) when the morning sun is in his hair (indicating fire transformation) (Cersei I, AFFC), wants to be referred to as the fiery hand, in the same manner as an old King of the Reach and descendent of Garth Greenhand. Why? Because, as a Lannister, he is also a descendant of Garth Greenhand.

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In some tales of the Reach, Lann the Clever was a bastard born to Rowan or her sister Florys the Fox. (From the wiki)

So Rowan Gold-tree, who used her kissed by fire golden hair and planted a golden fire rowan tree from a fire of the gods apple, may have had a son, Lann the Clever, who challenged the gods to steal the sun’s fire and use it as a crown. Once again, we have this cyclical symbolism that so embodies Azor Ahai and Azor Ahai Reborn.

 

Earlier, I pointed out the parallel between Lann using the sun’s fire to crown himself and Hugor of the Hill being crowned with seven stars: Hugor of the Hill you say? Sounds a lot like a Westerlands bastard name to me. And it turns out that Lann the Clever, founder of the primary House of the Westerlands, is a bastard.

A closer look at Hugor of the Hill and it turns out that he, too, is saturated with Azor Ahai symbolism. His crown of stars was a celestial gift from the Father and he was gifted a beautiful willowy maid (with willow as yet another tree with assorted Yggdrasil and therefore weirwood connotations) by the Maid and this woman bore many children for Hugor (like many children that are born of Lann the Clever, Garth Greenhand, the Grey King, The Night’s King and Durran Godsgrief). His sons had armour forged by the Smith himself, so conceivably this is magic armour, much as one of Huzhor Amai’s three wives forged awesome armour for him: note that Huzhor Amai is a hero figure whose name is phenomenally similar to Azor Ahai and that this has been potentially linked to the Great Empire of the Dawn. Furthermore, the Pentoshi sing of someone named Hukko, tought to be a parallel of Hugor, who slew the seven swan maidens and lured blood people into the Velvet Hills as a blood sacrifice to the Seven: sounds a lot like the darker Garth Greenhand who demanded blood sacrifice to change the seasons, as a dark corn king should. Finally, Azor Ahai Reborn symbol par excellence, witty trickster (like Lann the Clever) Tyrion Lannister, takes the name Hugor Hill.

 

In a very abrupt conclusion (because I never know how to finish these things off), I believe I have sufficiently demonstrated how heavily golden hair is related to Azor Ahai symbolism and, given that much of this symbolism is related to fire transformation, I think we can safely say that golden hair is a symbol of being kissed by fire too.

If you got all the way down here, thanks for reading. Comments would be appreciated, and potential implications for the actual story even more so (because I'm super bad at that) :)

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3 hours ago, Archmaester_Aemma said:

Finally, we have Rowan Gold-tree and we are going to devote quite a bit of time to her. This is from the wiki:

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According to legend, she was so bereft when her lover left her for a rich rival that she wrapped an apple in her golden hair and planted it upon a hill. From the apple grew a tree whose bark, leaves and fruit were yellow gold. 

So, we have a love that is poisoned (by betrayal): check for “a love that kills/sex and swordplay”. An apple is a potent symbol of the fire of the gods: think of the fruit of the Tree of Good and Evil in the Garden of Eden that is frequently depicted as an apple

 

This poem came up before on my poetry thread.  It may provide some food for thought:

 

A Poison Tree

 

I was angry with my friend; 

I told my wrath, my wrath did end. 

I was angry with my foe: 

I told it not, my wrath did grow. 

 

And I waterd it in fears, 

Night & morning with my tears: 

And I sunned it with smiles

And with soft deceitful wiles

 

And it grew both day and night. 

Till it bore an apple bright

And my foe beheld it shine

And he knew that it was mine. 

 

And into my garden stole, 

When the night had veild the pole; 

In the morning glad I see; 

My foe outstretched beneath the tree.

 

-- WILLIAM BLAKE

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3 hours ago, ravenous reader said:

 

This poem came up before on my poetry thread.  It may provide some food for thought:

 

A Poison Tree

 

I was angry with my friend; 

I told my wrath, my wrath did end. 

I was angry with my foe: 

I told it not, my wrath did grow. 

 

And I waterd it in fears, 

Night & morning with my tears: 

And I sunned it with smiles

And with soft deceitful wiles

 

And it grew both day and night. 

Till it bore an apple bright

And my foe beheld it shine

And he knew that it was mine. 

 

And into my garden stole, 

When the night had veild the pole; 

In the morning glad I see; 

My foe outstretched beneath the tree.

 

-- WILLIAM BLAKE

That would certainly fit with the jealous/wrathful moon maiden figure... the poisoned apple of Snow White's stepmother too? That's been echoing around my head too but without a solid textual foundation.

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Golden apples! That rings a bell. 

Greek myth has a female hero, Atalanta, who was dedicated to Artemis. Raised by bears, an excellent hunter and archer, who helped slay the Calydonian Boar. She refused to marry, her angle being that she would only marry a man who could beat her in a foot race. If the man lost, he would be put to death. Many died before a suitor got Aphrodite's favour. She gave him 3 golden apples. In the foot race, he would drop one to distract Atalanta whenever she was about to pull ahead. He narrowly won the race and so married her. 

And then there's this nugget. From the Wiki: 

" Zeus or his mother Rhea turned Atalanta and Hippomenes into lions after they made love together in one of his temples. Other accounts say that Aphrodite changed them into lions because they did not give her proper honor. The belief at the time was that lions could not mate with their own species, only with leopards; thus Atalanta and Hippomenes would never be able to remain with one another."

Moon maiden -> golden apple seduction-> lion. Cool!

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The scene of Cersei having her beautiful golden hair cut off is her power demolished under the sept.

Long hair being cut off features so many times. Arya's brown hair was cut off soon after her dad's beheading. That was only to make her look like a boy. Ellaria Sand wore long dark ringlets before Oberyn's death and later short hair at the time she killed Myrcella.

In the novels, Danaerys' hair is burned all off in the fire but on the TV show it's just clothing burned.

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3 hours ago, Jon Ice-Eyes said:

Golden apples! That rings a bell. 

Greek myth has a female hero, Atalanta, who was dedicated to Artemis. Raised by bears, an excellent hunter and archer, who helped slay the Calydonian Boar. She refused to marry, her angle being that she would only marry a man who could beat her in a foot race. If the man lost, he would be put to death. Many died before a suitor got Aphrodite's favour. She gave him 3 golden apples. In the foot race, he would drop one to distract Atalanta whenever she was about to pull ahead. He narrowly won the race and so married her. 

And then there's this nugget. From the Wiki: 

" Zeus or his mother Rhea turned Atalanta and Hippomenes into lions after they made love together in one of his temples. Other accounts say that Aphrodite changed them into lions because they did not give her proper honor. The belief at the time was that lions could not mate with their own species, only with leopards; thus Atalanta and Hippomenes would never be able to remain with one another."

Moon maiden -> golden apple seduction-> lion. Cool!

That's pretty interesting - it's also a mutual destruction/separation of lovers caused by disrespecting a god... I can't think of much worse disrespect than trying to steal their fire, knowledge and supernatural abilities haha

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On 5/17/2017 at 7:41 AM, Archmaester_Aemma said:

In a very abrupt conclusion (because I never know how to finish these things off), I believe I have sufficiently demonstrated how heavily golden hair is related to Azor Ahai symbolism and, given that much of this symbolism is related to fire transformation, I think we can safely say that golden hair is a symbol of being kissed by fire too.

While I agree that it is kissed by fire, the action of Lann the Clever using it to paint his hair is the act of bleaching his hair blonde. In essence he is a bottle blond, not a natural blond. It is like Jaime's golden sword being gold plated. In other words, fool's gold i.e. Iron Pyrite. The luck aspect of red hair is also manufactured as Lann's origin stories are about how he strove for his goal leaving very little room for luck. Lann story is very much a combination of Varys and Littlefinger. They use their abilities that may seem lucky and fortuitous, they are in fact advantageous only to the creators. 

I like to say that Lann is whitewashing his hair. 

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On 5/17/2017 at 10:41 AM, Archmaester_Aemma said:

I’m currently working on an analysis of fire colour and what it may mean and I found myself going off on a not-particularly-relevant-for-my-analysis-but-cool tangent: golden hair is kissed by fire, much like red hair.

The symbolic connection of red and gold, apart from being the Lannister colors, is made clear with the frequent reiteration of the pairing of the two colors, in phrases such as 'red and gold' or 'russet and gold', especially in conjunction with trees and 'tree maidens' and their hair:

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A Dance with Dragons - Bran II

"Fire burns them. Fire is always hungry."

That was not Arya's voice, nor any child's. It was a woman's voice, high and sweet, with a strange music in it like none that he had ever heard and a sadness that he thought might break his heart. Bran squinted, to see her better. It was a girl, but smaller than Arya, her skin dappled like a doe's beneath a cloak of leaves. Her eyes were queer—large and liquid, gold and green, slitted like a cat's eyes. No one has eyes like that. Her hair was a tangle of brown and red and gold, autumn colors, with vines and twigs and withered flowers woven through it.

Autumn precedes Winter -- so the burning of 'red and gold' ('fire moon' = Doom ) precedes the 'black and silver' transmutation ('ice moon' -- black moon meteors and Others = Long Night).  You can see the transformation visually laid out for us here in Jaime's moonlit metamorphosis, in which he like a weirwood undergoes a color change from red to black (his coat) and gold to silver (his hair and armor):

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A Game of Thrones - Catelyn X

She nodded as the woods grew still around them. In the quiet she could hear them, far off yet moving closer; the tread of many horses, the rattle of swords and spears and armor, the murmur of human voices, with here a laugh, and there a curse.

Eons seemed to come and go. The sounds grew louder. She heard more laughter, a shouted command, splashing as they crossed and recrossed the little stream. A horse snorted. A man swore. And then at last she saw him … only for an instant, framed between the branches of the trees as she looked down at the valley floor, yet she knew it was him. Even at a distance, Ser Jaime Lannister was unmistakable. The moonlight had silvered his armor and the gold of his hair, and turned his crimson cloak to black. He was not wearing a helm.

He was there and he was gone again, his silvery armor obscured by the trees once more. Others came behind him, long columns of them, knights and sworn swords and freeriders, three quarters of the Lannister horse.

Jaime is playing sun-transformed moon maiden here (or AA 'mating with the tree/NN', if you prefer)!  Note, the curious phrasing that Jaime/AA was 'obscured by the trees' or 'framed by the trees', implying that NN is the seductive siren luring in AA, and not the other way around as is commonly presumed.  Moreover, after coupling with him in the moonlight, the moon maiden tree gives rise to the Others: 'Others came behind him...'  LOL -- By George, George; you are so witty!  Although it's not yet clear why, and the mechanism remains elusive, there's no doubt however that the Others derive from the trees.  The evidence for that keeps piling up.  Incidentally, note Jaime's also not wearing a helm -- so he's figuratively 'a sword without a hilt'.  Yet, he's engulfed by the trees; 'framed by the branches,' he's held by the trees, as it were.  So, this is another iteration of AA the sword, with the weirwood providing the hilt (it's a 'whispering wood,' remember, so there's likely to be many weirwoods surrounding Jaime) -- the phallic symbol in its sheath, respectively.  The 'sexy swordplay' kink continues...

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NB: for this to be a coherent essay, you will need to have familiarity with the symbolism outlined in  @LmL's Mythical Astronomy of Ice and Fire. Not just the physical second moon theory, but the symbolic motifs underpinning the conclusions, because I can't explain them all for length and potential accidental plagiarism reasons, and I will be referring to a lot of them.

We know that the key Lannisters in ASOIAF have golden-hair. Less focused upon is how this golden hair is related to the sun or touched by the sun in many scenes:

There is a common myth that explains why this might be the case, relayed to us in the very first book:

Anyone familiar with LmL’s symbolism will recognise the familiar “challenging the gods” tale. On this occasion, Lann tricks the solar deity and acquires the fire of the gods to brighten his hair. Note how golden hair in the previous quote series is likened to having a crown of gold upon one’s head: so, by the process of symbolic transference, we can see that Lann the Clever crowned himself with the fire of the gods.

A further pun Seams among others has highlighted is of 'hairs' on 'heirs'.  'Brightening ones heirs' takes on the additional connotations of 'whitewashing' their identities (the way Cersei and Jaime have done, passing the concentrated lionspawn off as stags...lions dressed in stag clothing, as it were!); as well as injecting some fresh and coveted DNA (e.g. a warg/skinchanging gift) into the bloodline, perhaps also using treacherous means, e.g. coercion or trickery.  There seem to be an awful lot of cases approaching a theme of mistaken identity between the sheets, in which people end up having sex with someone without their full knowledge and/or consent, including Littlefinger mistaking Lysa for Cat, Tyrion's strange remark on his wedding night to Sansa that in the dark he would be indistinguishable from the Knight of Flowers, and the strange goings-on surrounding Lann's 'sneaky nocturnal penetrations' of the fortified bastion of the 'rock' ;) in the Lann legend (stripping himself naked and then lubricating himself with butter in order to better slip into the cleft...please, spare me the blatant double entendre...I was only half-joking on LM's April Fool's thread 'Petyr is Varys's Little Finger'!)  @Unchained has offered a reading of the Rock as 'weirnet' which I've found compelling, hinting at one individual taking over the skinchanging 'host' of another skinchanger; perhaps he'll elaborate:

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The World of Ice and Fire - The Westerlands

Other tellers prefer other versions of the tale. In one, Lann uses the cleft [the 'front door' of the weirwood = vagina] to fill the Rock with mice, rats, and other vermin,[the 'weirnet' is polluted by the invader and this 'poison/toxin' must be excreted somehow] thereby driving out the Casterlys [the ousted original inhabitants = Others leave via the 'back door']. In another, he smuggles a pride of lions inside, ['pride of lions' = fire of the gods, moon meteors= sperm like Zeus's 'golden rain' falling on Danae in the myth] and Lord Casterly and his sons are all devoured, after which Lann claims his lordship's wife and daughters for himself. [someone's birthright is stolen] The bawdiest of the stories has Lann stealing in night after night to have his way with the Casterly maidens whilst they sleep. In nine months time, these maids all give birth to golden-haired children whilst still insisting they had never had carnal knowledge of a man.

The last tale, ribald as it is, has certain intriguing aspects that might hint at the truth of what occurred. It is Archmaester Perestan's belief that Lann was a retainer of some sort in service to Lord Casterly (perhaps a household guard), who impregnated his lordship's daughter (or daughters, though that seems less likely), and persuaded her father to give him the girl's hand in marriage. If indeed this was what occurred, assuming (as we must) that Lord Casterly had no trueborn sons, then in the natural course of events the Rock would have passed to the daughter, and hence to Lann, upon the father's death.

There is, to be sure, no more historical evidence for this than for any of the other versions. All that is known for certain is that sometime during the Age of Heroes, the Casterlys vanish from the chronicles, and the hitherto-unknown Lannisters appear in their place, ruling large portions of the westerlands from beneath Casterly Rock.

This stolen birthright motif has given rise in the collective forum subconscious to a slew of sarcastic jokes about 'stolen sperm' or 'warged sperm' -- which is actually less outlandish in essence than the bawdy interpretation would suggest.  In fact, I think that's more or less what happened.  Someone's valuable genetic endowment was appropriated via treacherous means -- and moreover, the purloined legacy was most probably a skinchanging gift, as @GloubieBoulga first suggested.  This is why in the Prologue the fabled 'sable cloak' is referred to as a 'crowning glory'...'soft and black as sin' -- linking the skinchanging gift (since a fur coat is a skin) to hair (since it's a fur coat and a 'crown' which as you've pointed out is synonymous for head of hair), heir (i.e. an inheritance) and murder (associated with the sable coat changing hands in the text -- think of Euron stripping it and the ship Nightflyer, a greenseer allusion, off Blacktyde after killing him, all done in order to usurp a crown).

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However, it would be a mistake from just this to refer to golden hair as “kissed by fire” in a similar way to red hair.

I'm not sure there's a distinction.  'Red and gold' are frequently found together in fire.  Via the copper-studded pennytree, the weirwood tree is associated with the electricity-conducting (i.e. attracting, stealing, and transmitting the fire of the gods) copper, which is a blend between red and gold.

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So I searched “gold hair” in asearchoficeandfire.com and this is the complete list of characters with gold hair.

Lannisters: Joffrey, Cersei, Jaime, (formerly) Tywin, Tyrion (black and gold: Sansa III, ASOS)

The blood of Old Valyria (silver-gold): Daenerys, Rhaego (HotU vision), Aurane Waters, King Aerys II, Aerion Brightflame, Lysono Maar (Lyseni spymaster for Golden Company)

House Dondarrion (red-gold): Beric Dondarrion, Ser Manfred Dondarrion (The Hedge Knight)

Other: one of Victarion’s sacrifices (red-gold hair; Victarion, ADWD), Lynesse Hightower, Tyene Sand, Rown Goldtree

 

It appears that all of these characters have some sort of LmL’s Azor Ahai symbolism. The Lannisters Azor Ahai symbolism I've just touched upon. The Blood of Old Valyria appear to be descended from the Great Empire of the Dawn and they are magical dragon riders. House Dondarrion appears to exist solely to provide Azor Ahai metaphors: Beric is resurrected multiple times and fights with a burning sword whilst his House sigil is a lightning bolt that opportunely struck enemies when a member of House Dondarrion’s sword was broken in two.

There is a difference, however, between the 'red-gold' fire and the 'pale blue' or 'purple-silver-white' lightning employed by such as the Others.

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The Other section will require a bit more detailing. I haven’t been able to classify the symbolism of the seven whores Victarion burns, so this is just spitballing really, but there is something there related to sevens. Seven is a number which appears to be associated with ice: think the Faith of the Seven, the sevens stars Hugor of the Hill pulled from the heavens to make a crown (there’s that fire of the gods as a crown thing again), there are seven ice-transformed beings in the Game of Thrones prologue (5 Others, Ser Waymar Royce and Will),

I was under the impression there were 6 Others in total (mirroring the number of COTF Bran meets, in addition to the number of Stark children and direwolves).  But, on having re-read that particular section in the Prologue, it's admittedly ambiguous (sigh, GRRM deliberately confusing us on the tallies again...).

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A Game of Thrones - Prologue

The Other halted. Will saw its eyes; blue, deeper and bluer than any human eyes, a blue that burned like ice. They fixed on the longsword trembling on high, watched the moonlight running cold along the metal. For a heartbeat he dared to hope.

They emerged silently from the shadows, twins to the first. Three of them … four … five … Ser Waymar may have felt the cold that came with them, but he never saw them, never heard them. Will had to call out. It was his duty. And his death, if he did. He shivered, and hugged the tree, and kept the silence.

The pale sword came shivering through the air.

I took this to mean five in addition to the leader, but your interpretation would also work.

Leaf -- Summer -- Bran

Snowy Locks -- Ghost -- Jon

Black Knife -- Nymeria -- Arya

Coals -- Shaggy -- Rickon

Ash -- Grey Wind -- Robb

Scales -- Lady -- Sansa

The last one is particularly interesting, implying the fate of the Starks hangs in the balance, with Sansa as the fulcrum around which they rise or fall.  There must be justice for Lady = Lyanna.

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seven towers of the Eyrie (an ice castle in the icy moon mountains), seven members of the Kingsguard etc etc. So seven women, trained in the seven sighs, are burned to death to appease both R’hllor and the Drowned God (and the Drowned God is likely a representative of the fire-transformed moon goddess/mermaid): is this a foreshadowing of fire transforming the ice moon? Anyway, if I am right about golden hair being kissed by fire, a woman with gold hair acting as a blood sacrifice is a symbolic parallel to Nissa Nissa.

Could be blonde, red or white hair.

A woman is betrayed / jilted / raped.  She is the putative ancestor of the Stark line.

The perpetrator impregnates her under uncertain circumstances and leaves, but the pregnancy thrives and she swears a bloody vengeance.

Her son will enact this vengeance against his own father -- hence the idea of the 'crown consuming the king'; in other words the 'hairs' or 'heirs' usurping the father's territory:

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A Storm of Swords - Davos V

"Your Grace," said Davos, "the cost . . ."

"I know the cost! Last night, gazing into that hearth, I saw things in the flames as well. I saw a king, a crown of fire on his brows, burning . . . burning, Davos. His own crown consumed his flesh and turned him into ash. Do you think I need Melisandre to tell me what that means? Or you?" The king moved, so his shadow fell upon King's Landing. "If Joffrey should die . . . what is the life of one bastard boy against a kingdom?"

"Everything," said Davos, softly.

This is analogous to the myth as I've mentioned of Danae who bore Perseus from Zeus's golden shower, who was fated to kill his own father.

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The rest are a little more straightforward. House Hightower is one of a few very old Houses in the Reach, and it has been hypothesised that they may be descendants of the Great Empire of the Dawn. As such, this links them to Azor Ahai, the Bloodstone Emperor.

Tyene Sand is the daughter of a septa and Oberyn Martell. As such, she is the result of a union between ice and fire (remembering that the Faith is heavily associated with ice, and Oberyn with fire or the sun’s fire). Another notable blond-haired, blue-eyed woman is Brienne of Tarth, whose sigil contains golden suns and silver moons. So ice and fire, moon and sun, Nissa Nissa and Azor Ahai, and the result of their union. And where is Tyene now? She’s going to infiltrate the Great Sept of Baelor: the fire-transformed offspring is entering one of the symbols of the ice moon, as part of the endlessly cyclical nature of Martin’s symbolism.

 

Finally, we have Rowan Gold-tree and we are going to devote quite a bit of time to her. This is from the wiki:

So, we have a love that is poisoned (by betrayal): check for “a love that kills/sex and swordplay”. An apple is a potent symbol of the fire of the gods: think of the fruit of the Tree of Good and Evil in the Garden of Eden that is frequently depicted as an apple, and this has been reflected in ASOIAF symbolism too. So check for more Azor Ahai symbolism.

This fire of the gods apple is then wrapped in Rowan’s kissed by golden fire hair, and out emerges Rowan’s tree burning with the sun’s golden fire.

I think the poisonous apple who is the instrument of vengeance is a child.  The fruit of the poisonous union -- the Lightbringer apple!

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As LmL explains far better in his most recent essay, a rowan tree (which we could conceivably call this golden tree belonging to Rowan) is a type of ash tree, a famous mythological ash tree is Yggdrasil, and one of the most vivid callouts to Yggdrasil in the novels is the weirwood tree. Notably, the weirwood tree is crowned with fire, as its leaves are described as “bits of flame”, and it is a fantastic representation of the fire of the gods i.e. enormous magical power.

I also like to think of it as the halo or aureole around a celestial body (either sun or moon), or even better a lion's mane, e.g. like Dany's hrakkar (I wrote a whole piece on white lions a while ago -- they are my ice moon revenants with blue eyes)!

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Why would Rowan plant a tree in response to being jilted? I would suggest that this is part of a jealous or vengeful Nissa Nissa motif: think Cersei jealous of Jaime's maleness and of the miller's wife in Theon's dream biting his penis off with her vagina teeth (Theon V, ACOK).

Yes, the vagina dentata dream is related to both castration and losing ones tongue, and associated with weirwood sacrifice.  I don't think she planted a tree in response to being jilted; the seed of the tree was already planted when this man had sex with her with the resulting conception.  She then nurtured the 'tree', entreating the son to take revenge on her behalf.  The tree or at least a branch or fruit thereof is a person.  That's why we talk about a 'family tree'.

NN violated by AA; or AA framed by NN

Offspring AAR topples AA

In the Prologue, NN is represented by the sentinel tree, the blood of her sacrificed maidenhead by the 'sticky sap'

AA is represented by sneaky greenseer figure Will

Their union is represented by the 'storm of needles' (golden shower or meteor shower equivalent) hitting Waymar

Wighted Waymar is AAR, who returns to seek revenge on his brother/father by strangling him (symbolically tearing out his tongue).

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In the case of Rowan, she brings down the fire of the gods (as a moon-meteor apple) infused with the sun's fire (her golden hair) to create a burning tree (the weirwood): otherwise known as the events that caused the Long Night. 

The falling apple vividly evokes the falling meteor as well as the knowledge aspect.  Sir Isaac Newton is said to have been inspired to conceptualize gravity in his 'eureka' moment by a falling apple!

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"Why sh[oul]d it not go sideways, or upwards? But constantly to the Earth's centre? Assuredly the reason is, that the Earth draws it. There must be a drawing power in matter. And the sum of the drawing power in the matter of the Earth must be in the Earth's centre, not in any side of the Earth.

"Therefore does this apple fall perpendicularly or towards the centre? If matter thus draws matter; it must be proportion of its quantity. Therefore the apple draws the Earth, as well as the Earth draws the apple."

...

Did it really happen, or was it a story that Newton embellished or even invented?

"Newton cleverly honed this anecdote over time," said Keith Moore, head of archives at the Royal Society. "The story was certainly true, but let's say it got better with the telling." The story of the apple fitted with the idea of an Earth-shaped object being attracted to the Earth. It also had a resonance with the Biblical account of the tree of knowledge, and Newton was known to have extreme religious views, Mr Moore said.

At Woolsthorpe Manor, now owned by the National Trust, the house steward, Margaret Winn, said that the same apple tree, a cooking variety known as Flower of Kent, still grows to the front of the house, in sight of Newton's bedroom window.

"He did tell the story as an old man but you do wonder whether it really happened," said Ms Winn, who has cooked with the apples. But even if the tale was the fanciful imaginings of an old man, the story of the falling apple has gone down in history as the second-greatest "eureka moment" in science, after Archimedes discovered how to work out the volume of objects while he was in the bath.

From: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/the-core-of-truth-behind-sir-isaac-newtons-apple-1870915.html

 

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If her lover was a solar figure, that would then "kill" him, as the Long Night killed the sun.

Yes, that makes sense.

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What of Rowan Gold-tree’s family? Her father was Garth Greenhand, who planted the three intertwined weirwoods at Highgarden, sat in a throne of living wood (like a greenseer), acted as a Corn King and horned god and so on and so forth. All in all, he’s a pretty important guy, for his symbolism if nothing else: LmL devotes a long section of one of his essays to this. One sentence in particular jumped out to me in light of this essay is the following:

Note that if something golden is analogous to something being on fire, a golden hand would be a fiery hand, and a fiery hand is one of the many moon-meteor-explosion motifs. Why did this jump out to me?

The gold hand is also a possible allusion to the 'Midas touch', whereby fiery things become cold, and life extinguished ('hands of gold are always cold'), reflecting the evolution from fire to stone; life to death; and vice versa.  So falling stones can ignite fires, just as fires can ignite stones ('wake dragons from stone').  Both can bring death, and life.

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Kissed by golden fire, Jaime Lannister, who smells of ash (ash being a weirwood symbol) when the morning sun is in his hair (indicating fire transformation) (Cersei I, AFFC), wants to be referred to as the fiery hand, in the same manner as an old King of the Reach and descendent of Garth Greenhand. Why? Because, as a Lannister, he is also a descendant of Garth Greenhand.

So Rowan Gold-tree, who used her kissed by fire golden hair and planted a golden fire rowan tree from a fire of the gods apple, may have had a son, Lann the Clever, who challenged the gods to steal the sun’s fire and use it as a crown. Once again, we have this cyclical symbolism that so embodies Azor Ahai and Azor Ahai Reborn.

It's difficult to tell the difference between the father and the son.  Lann could be either the violating lover/rapist or the prodigal bastard child of rape returning to claim his due.  

Who was Danny Flint for example?  The implication is she was raped.  And a flint is a stone (Casterly Rock impreganble female vault analogue) which can be used to ignite a spark when struck against a knife (phallic symbol).  The 'Lann' figure either rapes the 'Danny' figure or uses her and abandons her, leaving behind 'an ember in the ashes' (the child of the union) that is destined to 'ignite a blaz[ing inferno]'.  He is a skinchanger like his father and/or mother.  Greenseer war in the 'weirnet' upcoming!

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Earlier, I pointed out the parallel between Lann using the sun’s fire to crown himself and Hugor of the Hill being crowned with seven stars: Hugor of the Hill you say? Sounds a lot like a Westerlands bastard name to me. And it turns out that Lann the Clever, founder of the primary House of the Westerlands, is a bastard.

 

Yes, he's either a bastard or someone who was responsible for siring a bastard on someone.  I believe Littlefinger, the Lann equivalent (he may not have golden hair, but he has a talent for rubbing two golden dragons together to produce a third, and he has grey-green eyes), who may be a bastard himself, has done something similar in the Eyrie by managing to impregnate the seemingly impregnable castle and Lady Lysa at once, producing Sweetrobin the bastard with a telltale dark, instead of sandy blonde, crown.  The clue is in the name...A 'mockingbird' 'cuckolds' (derived from the idea of a cuckoo laying its eggs in another bird's nest) a falcon to produce a robin.  The birds are not the same species!

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A closer look at Hugor of the Hill and it turns out that he, too, is saturated with Azor Ahai symbolism. His crown of stars was a celestial gift from the Father and he was gifted a beautiful willowy maid (with willow as yet another tree with assorted Yggdrasil and therefore weirwood connotations) by the Maid and this woman bore many children for Hugor (like many children that are born of Lann the Clever, Garth Greenhand, the Grey King, The Night’s King and Durran Godsgrief). His sons had armour forged by the Smith himself, so conceivably this is magic armour, much as one of Huzhor Amai’s three wives forged awesome armour for him:

Good point.  That's the skinchanging faculty to which I was referring.  One of Huzhor Amai's wives, the 'Gipps' one also carries a wicker shield, which is a symbol of the weirwood and its magically woven spells.

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note that Huzhor Amai is a hero figure whose name is phenomenally similar to Azor Ahai and that this has been potentially linked to the Great Empire of the Dawn. Furthermore, the Pentoshi sing of someone named Hukko, tought to be a parallel of Hugor, who slew the seven swan maidens and lured blood people into the Velvet Hills as a blood sacrifice to the Seven: sounds a lot like the darker Garth Greenhand who demanded blood sacrifice to change the seasons, as a dark corn king should. Finally, Azor Ahai Reborn symbol par excellence, witty trickster (like Lann the Clever) Tyrion Lannister, takes the name Hugor Hill.

I haven't looked at the swan symbolism.  You might want to read some @sweetsunray for that.

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In a very abrupt conclusion (because I never know how to finish these things off), I believe I have sufficiently demonstrated how heavily golden hair is related to Azor Ahai symbolism and, given that much of this symbolism is related to fire transformation, I think we can safely say that golden hair is a symbol of being kissed by fire too.

If you got all the way down here, thanks for reading. Comments would be appreciated, and potential implications for the actual story even more so (because I'm super bad at that) :)

@LmL's busy putting the finishing touches on his latest podcast, but hopefully when he's around here again he'll add some of his impressions.  :)

19 hours ago, Jon Ice-Eyes said:

Golden apples! That rings a bell. 

Greek myth has a female hero, Atalanta, who was dedicated to Artemis. Raised by bears, an excellent hunter and archer, who helped slay the Calydonian Boar. She refused to marry, her angle being that she would only marry a man who could beat her in a foot race. If the man lost, he would be put to death. Many died before a suitor got Aphrodite's favour. She gave him 3 golden apples. In the foot race, he would drop one to distract Atalanta whenever she was about to pull ahead. He narrowly won the race and so married her. 

And then there's this nugget. From the Wiki: 

" Zeus or his mother Rhea turned Atalanta and Hippomenes into lions after they made love together in one of his temples. Other accounts say that Aphrodite changed them into lions because they did not give her proper honor. The belief at the time was that lions could not mate with their own species, only with leopards; thus Atalanta and Hippomenes would never be able to remain with one another."

Moon maiden -> golden apple seduction-> lion. Cool!

There's also the golden 'apple of discord' which led to the Trojan War.

2 hours ago, Pain killer Jane said:

While I agree that it is kissed by fire, the action of Lann the Clever using it to paint his hair is the act of bleaching his hair blonde. In essence he is a bottle blond, not a natural blond. It is like Jaime's golden sword being gold plated. In other words, fool's gold i.e. Iron Pyrite. The luck aspect of red hair is also manufactured as Lann's origin stories are about how he strove for his goal leaving very little room for luck. Lann story is very much a combination of Varys and Littlefinger. They use their abilities that may seem lucky and fortuitous, they are in fact advantageous only to the creators. 

I like to say that Lann is whitewashing his hair. 

Love this insight.  The 'luck' involved with the trickster involves the duping of another, in line with what you have described pertaining to someone sacrificed in order to enhance the 'mana' of another, who is the real 'gambler', e.g. Pate the lucky pig boy duped by the Alchemist, Big Walder killing Little Walder (symbolically stripping him of his lucky horn), or Arya outwitting the illiterate guy, and claiming the silver horn prize.  An opportunistic theft is presented as 'luck'.

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A Feast for Crows - Prologue

Leo's eyes were hazel, bright with wine and malice. "Your mother was a monkey from the Summer Isles. The Dornish will fuck anything with a hole between its legs. Meaning no offense. You may be brown as a nut, but at least you bathe. Unlike our spotted pig boy." He waved a hand toward Pate.

If I hit him in the mouth with my tankard, I could knock out half his teeth, Pate thought. Spotted Pate the pig boy was the hero of a thousand ribald stories: a good-hearted, empty-headed lout who always managed to best the fat lordlings, haughty knights, and pompous septons who beset him. Somehow his stupidity would turn out to have been a sort of uncouth cunning; the tales always ended with Spotted Pate sitting on a lord's high seat or bedding some knight's daughter. But those were stories. In the real world pig boys never fared so well. Pate sometimes thought his mother must have hated him to have named him as she did.

In the 'real world,' pig boys are slaughtered for the benefit of 'the Lord of the Flies,' the 'Bael-ish' ones.

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On 5/17/2017 at 10:41 AM, Archmaester_Aemma said:


 

Earlier, I pointed out the parallel between Lann using the sun’s fire to crown himself and Hugor of the Hill being crowned with seven stars: Hugor of the Hill you say? Sounds a lot like a Westerlands bastard name to me. And it turns out that Lann the Clever, founder of the primary House of the Westerlands, is a bastard.

Sudden spitball: Lann was fathered on a despoiled swan maiden, the fire of his hair stolen from a "daughter" of the Maiden Clothed in Light.

 

On 5/17/2017 at 10:41 AM, Archmaester_Aemma said:

 

A closer look at Hugor of the Hill and it turns out that he, too, is saturated with Azor Ahai symbolism. His crown of stars was a celestial gift from the Father and he was gifted a beautiful willowy maid (with willow as yet another tree with assorted Yggdrasil and therefore weirwood connotations) by the Maid and this woman bore many children for Hugor (like many children that are born of Lann the Clever, Garth Greenhand, the Grey King, The Night’s King and Durran Godsgrief). His sons had armour forged by the Smith himself, so conceivably this is magic armour, much as one of Huzhor Amai’s three wives forged awesome armour for him: note that Huzhor Amai is a hero figure whose name is phenomenally similar to Azor Ahai and that this has been potentially linked to the Great Empire of the Dawn. Furthermore, the Pentoshi sing of someone named Hukko, tought to be a parallel of Hugor, who slew the seven swan maidens and lured blood people into the Velvet Hills as a blood sacrifice to the Seven: sounds a lot like the darker Garth Greenhand who demanded blood sacrifice to change the seasons, as a dark corn king should. Finally, Azor Ahai Reborn symbol par excellence, witty trickster (like Lann the Clever) Tyrion Lannister, takes the name Hugor Hill.

 

In a very abrupt conclusion (because I never know how to finish these things off), I believe I have sufficiently demonstrated how heavily golden hair is related to Azor Ahai symbolism and, given that much of this symbolism is related to fire transformation, I think we can safely say that golden hair is a symbol of being kissed by fire too.

If you got all the way down here, thanks for reading. Comments would be appreciated, and potential implications for the actual story even more so (because I'm super bad at that) :)

I wonder if Hugor's main line is in the Vale somewhere, perhaps the Arryns?

 

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On 5/17/2017 at 7:41 AM, Archmaester_Aemma said:

The Night’s King and Durran Godsgrief). His sons had armour forged by the Smith himself, so conceivably this is magic armour, much as one of Huzhor Amai’s three wives forged awesome armour for him: note that Huzhor Amai is a hero figure whose name is phenomenally similar to Azor Ahai and that this has been potentially linked to the Great Empire of the Dawn.

As @ravenous reader pointed out the Gipps wife is very important, not only does she carry the shield, her people are known for their lime stiffen hair. As I pointed up thread, Lann painting his hair with the sun is bleaching his hair blond. Lime Juice before peroxide was used to lighten hair color. However, the lime used by the Gipps people, is the charred bones of sea creatures. This is a real life practice in Polynesian cultures. It was meant to be a hat to protect from the sun. This lime is not charcoal black but is reduced to white powder and therefore we can say that the Gipps people are also whitewashing their hair like Lann the Clever. 

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15 hours ago, ravenous reader said:

Love this insight.  The 'luck' involved with the trickster involves the duping of another, in line with what you have described pertaining to someone sacrificed in order to enhance the 'mana' of another, who is the real 'gambler', e.g. Pate the lucky pig boy duped by the Alchemist, Big Walder killing Little Walder (symbolically stripping him of his lucky horn), or Arya outwitting the illiterate guy, and claiming the silver horn prize.  An opportunistic theft is presented as 'luck'.

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A Feast for Crows - Prologue

Leo's eyes were hazel, bright with wine and malice. "Your mother was a monkey from the Summer Isles. The Dornish will fuck anything with a hole between its legs. Meaning no offense. You may be brown as a nut, but at least you bathe. Unlike our spotted pig boy." He waved a hand toward Pate.

If I hit him in the mouth with my tankard, I could knock out half his teeth, Pate thought. Spotted Pate the pig boy was the hero of a thousand ribald stories: a good-hearted, empty-headed lout who always managed to best the fat lordlings, haughty knights, and pompous septons who beset him. Somehow his stupidity would turn out to have been a sort of uncouth cunning; the tales always ended with Spotted Pate sitting on a lord's high seat or bedding some knight's daughter. But those were stories. In the real world pig boys never fared so well. Pate sometimes thought his mother must have hated him to have named him as she did.

In the 'real world,' pig boys are slaughtered for the benefit of 'the Lord of the Flies,' the 'Bael-ish' ones.

So true. Poor Pig Boys. I have to wonder if we need to find the person behind Pate and Florian the fool? Why we do have Baelish behind Ser Dontos, I wonder if the person behind Pate was Lann the Clever. 

One a completely unrelated topic, RR it just dawned on me that the Kettleblacks are crows.....completely late I know but in my defense I never looked beyond them other than being mirrors of the Toynes'.  

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15 hours ago, hiemal said:

I wonder if Hugor's main line is in the Vale somewhere, perhaps the Arryns?

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House Arryn derives from the oldest and purest line of Andal nobility. The Arryn kings can proudly trace back their lineage to Andalos itself, and some of them have gone so far as to claim descent from Hugor of the Hill.

- The World of Ice and Fire, The Vale:House Arryn

 

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To understand what Kissed by Fire means to the people north of the wall you just have to look at them. Most are blood of the first men. Dark haired people of the grassy plains of Essos if the Maesters are to be believed. Closer to what Dothraki look like. 

Most like blonde hair came with the Andals (northern Essos) and was never associated to people far north in Westeros. Red hair likely predates the presence of the Andals. If I had to guess it would be mutation that stuck with them over the thousands of years. Kinda like how some Africans have red or reddish brown hair with no link to blond hair.

Summarizing it I don't think Kissed by Fire includes blondes.

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On 2017-5-19 at 0:00 AM, Pain killer Jane said:

While I agree that it is kissed by fire, the action of Lann the Clever using it to paint his hair is the act of bleaching his hair blonde. In essence he is a bottle blond, not a natural blond. It is like Jaime's golden sword being gold plated. In other words, fool's gold i.e. Iron Pyrite. The luck aspect of red hair is also manufactured as Lann's origin stories are about how he strove for his goal leaving very little room for luck. Lann story is very much a combination of Varys and Littlefinger. They use their abilities that may seem lucky and fortuitous, they are in fact advantageous only to the creators. 

I like to say that Lann is whitewashing his hair. 

Isn't that what the naughty greenseer/Azor Ahai types do? They are not gods, but they want to be god-like so they steal the fire of the gods breaking the natural order of the world. That is Lann the Clever, stealing L'Oreal shade 053 Golden sun unnaturelle to hide his roots (tree pun accidental)

 

22 hours ago, ravenous reader said:

The symbolic connection of red and gold, apart from being the Lannister colors, is made clear with the frequent reiteration of the pairing of the two colors, in phrases such as 'red and gold' or 'russet and gold', especially in conjunction with trees and 'tree maidens' and their hair:

Autumn precedes Winter -- so the burning of 'red and gold' ('fire moon' = Doom ) precedes the 'black and silver' transmutation ('ice moon' -- black moon meteors and Others = Long Night).  You can see the transformation visually laid out for us here in Jaime's moonlit metamorphosis, in which he like a weirwood undergoes a color change from red to black (his coat) and gold to silver (his hair and armor):

By addressing gold hair on its own, I didn't mean to imply a lack of red/gold connection, but I'm in the process of disentangling the connotations of individual fire colours at the minute and I haven't gotten to the stage where I'm piecing the jigsaw puzzle back together yet. Red-gold does make sense in light of what I've interpreted individual colours as so far: red as (blood) magic and old as LB.

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Jaime is playing sun-transformed moon maiden here (or AA 'mating with the tree/NN', if you prefer)!  Note, the curious phrasing that Jaime/AA was 'obscured by the trees' or 'framed by the trees', implying that NN is the seductive siren luring in AA, and not the other way around as is commonly presumed.  Moreover, after coupling with him in the moonlight, the moon maiden tree gives rise to the Others: 'Others came behind him...'  LOL -- By George, George; you are so witty!  Although it's not yet clear why, and the mechanism remains elusive, there's no doubt however that the Others derive from the trees.  The evidence for that keeps piling up.  Incidentally, note Jaime's also not wearing a helm -- so he's figuratively 'a sword without a hilt'.  Yet, he's engulfed by the trees; 'framed by the branches,' he's held by the trees, as it were.  So, this is another iteration of AA the sword, with the weirwood providing the hilt (it's a 'whispering wood,' remember, so there's likely to be many weirwoods surrounding Jaime) -- the phallic symbol in its sheath, respectively.  The 'sexy swordplay' kink continues...

Is this also a Grey King thing?

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"Robert's beard was black. Mine is gold."
 
"Gold? Or silver?" Cersei plucked a hair from beneath his chin and held it up. It was grey. "All the color is draining out of you, brother. You've become a ghost of what you were, a pale crippled thing. And so bloodless, always in white." She flicked the hair away. "I prefer you garbed in crimson and gold." (Jaime III, AFFC)

 

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A further pun Seams among others has highlighted is of 'hairs' on 'heirs'.  'Brightening ones heirs' takes on the additional connotations of 'whitewashing' their identities (the way Cersei and Jaime have done, passing the concentrated lionspawn off as stags...lions dressed in stag clothing, as it were!); as well as injecting some fresh and coveted DNA (e.g. a warg/skinchanging gift) into the bloodline, perhaps also using treacherous means, e.g. coercion or trickery.  There seem to be an awful lot of cases approaching a theme of mistaken identity between the sheets, in which people end up having sex with someone without their full knowledge and/or consent, including Littlefinger mistaking Lysa for Cat, Tyrion's strange remark on his wedding night to Sansa that in the dark he would be indistinguishable from the Knight of Flowers, and the strange goings-on surrounding Lann's 'sneaky nocturnal penetrations' of the fortified bastion of the 'rock' ;) in the Lann legend (stripping himself naked and then lubricating himself with butter in order to better slip into the cleft...please, spare me the blatant double entendre...I was only half-joking on LM's April Fool's thread 'Petyr is Varys's Little Finger'!)  @Unchained has offered a reading of the Rock as 'weirnet' which I've found compelling, hinting at one individual taking over the skinchanging 'host' of another skinchanger; perhaps he'll elaborate:

This stolen birthright motif has given rise in the collective forum subconscious to a slew of sarcastic jokes about 'stolen sperm' or 'warged sperm' -- which is actually less outlandish in essence than the bawdy interpretation would suggest.  In fact, I think that's more or less what happened.  Someone's valuable genetic endowment was appropriated via treacherous means -- and moreover, the purloined legacy was most probably a skinchanging gift, as @GloubieBoulga first suggested.  This is why in the Prologue the fabled 'sable cloak' is referred to as a 'crowning glory'...'soft and black as sin' -- linking the skinchanging gift (since a fur coat is a skin) to hair (since it's a fur coat and a 'crown' which as you've pointed out is synonymous for head of hair), heir (i.e. an inheritance) and murder (associated with the sable coat changing hands in the text -- think of Euron stripping it and the ship Nightflyer, a greenseer allusion, off Blacktyde after killing him, all done in order to usurp a crown).

I'm not sure there's a distinction.  'Red and gold' are frequently found together in fire.  Via the copper-studded pennytree, the weirwood tree is associated with the electricity-conducting (i.e. attracting, stealing, and transmitting the fire of the gods) copper, which is a blend between red and gold.

That's not quite what I meant: I was talking more methodologically, in that one line of evidence in books of this scale is insufficient to draw a sweeping conclusion.

Having said that, I am in the process of writing up a series of essays about Martin's use of language surrounding fire and fire colour, and I believe that all of the fire colours are dissociable and have different meanings but that these all cohere to tell the story of the forging of LB. That is why many Lightbringer symbols are red AND orange AND yellow/gold (depending on whether the fire itself is mudane or magical) - because these are the three key aspects of the tale: blood sacrifice, a fire in the night and the fire of the gods.

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There is a difference, however, between the 'red-gold' fire and the 'pale blue' or 'purple-silver-white' lightning employed by such as the Others.

This is something I had also gleaned from my colour analyses and, again, I did not mean to imply that they are the same. I was just pointing out the confluence of symbolism that all points to the fire of the gods surrounding people of gold hair. :)

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I was under the impression there were 6 Others in total (mirroring the number of COTF Bran meets, in addition to the number of Stark children and direwolves).  But, on having re-read that particular section in the Prologue, it's admittedly ambiguous (sigh, GRRM deliberately confusing us on the tallies again...).

I took this to mean five in addition to the leader, but your interpretation would also work.

Leaf -- Summer -- Bran

Snowy Locks -- Ghost -- Jon

Black Knife -- Nymeria -- Arya

Coals -- Shaggy -- Rickon

Ash -- Grey Wind -- Robb

Scales -- Lady -- Sansa

The last one is particularly interesting, implying the fate of the Starks hangs in the balance, with Sansa as the fulcrum around which they rise or fall.  There must be justice for Lady = Lyanna.

No, that is just me misreading it I think. It works far better to have consistent sixes than some sixes and a random five haha besides, we never actually see Will ice-transformed so 6 Others + Royce still makes the magic 7.

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Could be blonde, red or white hair.

A woman is betrayed / jilted / raped.  She is the putative ancestor of the Stark line.

The perpetrator impregnates her under uncertain circumstances and leaves, but the pregnancy thrives and she swears a bloody vengeance.

Her son will enact this vengeance against his own father -- hence the idea of the 'crown consuming the king'; in other words the 'hairs' or 'heirs' usurping the father's territory:

This is analogous to the myth as I've mentioned of Danae who bore Perseus from Zeus's golden shower, who was fated to kill his own father.

I think the poisonous apple who is the instrument of vengeance is a child.  The fruit of the poisonous union -- the Lightbringer apple!

I also like to think of it as the halo or aureole around a celestial body (either sun or moon), or even better a lion's mane, e.g. like Dany's hrakkar (I wrote a whole piece on white lions a while ago -- they are my ice moon revenants with blue eyes)!

Those are all really interesting connotations: the only reason I stuck with the crown imagery is because, in the essay this was originally supposed to be part of, the fiery crown just kept popping up, so it was easier to stay consistent.
 

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Yes, the vagina dentata dream is related to both castration and losing ones tongue, and associated with weirwood sacrifice.  I don't think she planted a tree in response to being jilted; the seed of the tree was already planted when this man had sex with her with the resulting conception.  She then nurtured the 'tree', entreating the son to take revenge on her behalf.  The tree or at least a branch or fruit thereof is a person.  That's why we talk about a 'family tree'.

NN violated by AA; or AA framed by NN

Offspring AAR topples AA

In the Prologue, NN is represented by the sentinel tree, the blood of her sacrificed maidenhead by the 'sticky sap'

AA is represented by sneaky greenseer figure Will

Their union is represented by the 'storm of needles' (golden shower or meteor shower equivalent) hitting Waymar

Wighted Waymar is AAR, who returns to seek revenge on his brother/father by strangling him (symbolically tearing out his tongue).

The falling apple vividly evokes the falling meteor as well as the knowledge aspect.  Sir Isaac Newton is said to have been inspired to conceptualize gravity in his 'eureka' moment by a falling apple!

 

Yes, that makes sense.The gold hand is also a possible allusion to the 'Midas touch', whereby fiery things become cold, and life extinguished ('hands of gold are always cold'), reflecting the evolution from fire to stone; life to death; and vice versa.  So falling stones can ignite fires, just as fires can ignite stones ('wake dragons from stone').  Both can bring death, and life.

So I found my initial plan for this, and it actually had the hands of gold in there, although less coherent and with fewer insights.

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It's difficult to tell the difference between the father and the son.  Lann could be either the violating lover/rapist or the prodigal bastard child of rape returning to claim his due.  

Who was Danny Flint for example?  The implication is she was raped.  And a flint is a stone (Casterly Rock impreganble female vault analogue) which can be used to ignite a spark when struck against a knife (phallic symbol).  The 'Lann' figure either rapes the 'Danny' figure or uses her and abandons her, leaving behind 'an ember in the ashes' (the child of the union) that is destined to 'ignite a blaz[ing inferno]'.  He is a skinchanger like his father and/or mother.  Greenseer war in the 'weirnet' upcoming!

Yes, he's either a bastard or someone who was responsible for siring a bastard on someone.  I believe Littlefinger, the Lann equivalent (he may not have golden hair, but he has a talent for rubbing two golden dragons together to produce a third, and he has grey-green eyes), who may be a bastard himself, has done something similar in the Eyrie by managing to impregnate the seemingly impregnable castle and Lady Lysa at once, producing Sweetrobin the bastard with a telltale dark, instead of sandy blonde, crown.  The clue is in the name...A 'mockingbird' 'cuckolds' (derived from the idea of a cuckoo laying its eggs in another bird's nest) a falcon to produce a robin.  The birds are not the same species!

Good point.  That's the skinchanging faculty to which I was referring.  One of Huzhor Amai's wives, the 'Gipps' one also carries a wicker shield, which is a symbol of the weirwood and its magically woven spells.

 

8 hours ago, Pain killer Jane said:

As @ravenous reader pointed out the Gipps wife is very important, not only does she carry the shield, her people are known for their lime stiffen hair. As I pointed up thread, Lann painting his hair with the sun is bleaching his hair blond. Lime Juice before peroxide was used to lighten hair color. However, the lime used by the Gipps people, is the charred bones of sea creatures. This is a real life practice in Polynesian cultures. It was meant to be a hat to protect from the sun. This lime is not charcoal black but is reduced to white powder and therefore we can say that the Gipps people are also whitewashing their hair like Lann the Clever. 

So we have the Cymmeri wife who forges magical armour (skinchanging), the Gipps wife who whitewashes her hair and carries a wicker shield, and the Zoqora wife who drove the chariot of (presumably) solar king figure Huzhor Amai, who saved the world wearing the skin of another human (a cloak made from the pelt of the king of the Hairy Men) - a perverse sable cloak?

 

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On 5/18/2017 at 3:16 AM, Wolfgirly said:

The scene of Cersei having her beautiful golden hair cut off is her power demolished under the sept.

Long hair being cut off features so many times. Arya's brown hair was cut off soon after her dad's beheading. That was only to make her look like a boy. Ellaria Sand wore long dark ringlets before Oberyn's death and later short hair at the time she killed Myrcella.

In the novels, Danaerys' hair is burned all off in the fire but on the TV show it's just clothing burned.

That's a great observation. I have seen a pattern of moon maidens undergoing fiery Nissa Nissa type death transformations, only to become "trapped in the ice," which inside the scope of the two moons theory basically means the first moon blowing up in fiery dragon birth, and then one of those black meteors striking the survivor moon, which I think of as associated with ice as @Archmaester_Aemma mentioned. Sansa fleeing Kings Landing after the purpke wedding ans becoming "lodged" in the literally icy Eyrie. Sansa becomes a "Stone" and loses her fiery red hair through hair dye. Cersei is a great fire moon character, so her being imprisoned in the icy (in terms of symbolism) Sept of Baelor fits that pattern. Like Sands, she loses her golden / fiery hair. Very nice! These moon maidens losing their fiery hair is just an image of a meteor's streaking fire going out after it lands in the ice. 

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On 20/05/2017 at 6:19 AM, LmL said:

That's a great observation. I have seen a pattern of moon maidens undergoing fiery Nissa Nissa type death transformations, only to become "trapped in the ice," which inside the scope of the two moons theory basically means the first moon blowing up in fiery dragon birth, and then one of those black meteors striking the survivor moon, which I think of as associated with ice as @Archmaester_Aemma mentioned. Sansa fleeing Kings Landing after the purpke wedding ans becoming "lodged" in the literally icy Eyrie. Sansa becomes a "Stone" and loses her fiery red hair through hair dye. Cersei is a great fire moon character, so her being imprisoned in the icy (in terms of symbolism) Sept of Baelor fits that pattern. Like Sands, she loses her golden / fiery hair. Very nice! These moon maidens losing their fiery hair is just an image of a meteor's streaking fire going out after it lands in the ice. 

Thanks... You made an interesting link with the moons and comet. 

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