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38 minutes ago, Pain killer Jane said:

Well, the way I interpret it is that it is penny tree. The tree is piercing the ground and red leaves is blood blossoming from it. As to the sun, I would say it is sun rays but in the context of sacrifice and the acquisition of secret knowledge, it is Lann's stealing of fire to paint his hair blond which would make it the same as the tree. Does that make sense? 

Yes, it makes sense - I think we are all beating around the same burning bush, i just wanted to see how you and RR would phrase it. It's the Stairway to Heaven, the ladder to reach the fire of the gods. 

Also Euron's Valyrian steel armor has glyphs and whorls.

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12 minutes ago, LmL said:

Yes, it makes sense - I think we are all beating around the same burning bush, i just wanted to see how you and RR would phrase it. It's the Stairway to Heaven, the ladder to reach the fire of the gods. 

Also Euron's Valyrian steel armor has glyphs and whorls.

yup. Nice pun. And it is also a downward spiral into a pit of darkness. Eating from the tree of good and evil is called the Fall of Man after all. 

I hope D&D put Euron's armor on screen. I wonder if it could stand up to dragon fire. 

Oh and one thing I wanted to say about the spiral staircase being blood. It is hinted at by the proverb of "Bricks and Blood built Astapor, Bricks and Blood, its people." DNA is after all the building blocks of life. 

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On 8/11/2017 at 4:25 PM, Pain killer Jane said:

long time no see! I missed you. :wub: Sorry, I have been absent and I hope you aren't too mad at me. 

Hi PK - Ha! - I knew the Mistress of the Serpentine Steps could be summoned with the right whispered word ('DNA')!  I've missed you too.  :wub:   No worries -- I know the red jaguar, prowling the whitewashed steps under the sweet nostalgic fragrance of the lime trees and the silver sideways glance of the glimmering moon, is never far away...;)

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I have been walking the spiral staircase, its relation to PHI and the Fibonacci sequence, for a long time and I am glad people are starting to get a bit of an inkling of it. the staircase is extremely esoteric so I will do my best to explain how I see the spiral staircase. 

The spiral staircase basically boils down to blood. @LmL like you said yesterday bleeding stars are produced from the puncture of the god's eye but also should be considered a blossom of blood. One thing about the PHI and the Fibonacci sequence is that rose petals spiral out of the center on average according to Phi. And that is also why there are many instances of blood blossoming or being considered blossoms throughout the novels. Now the reason why I consider the staircase to be blood is that of the classic molecular arrangement of DNA as a spiral ladder.

Yes, I was thinking of you with 'phi' --  didn't you have a theory on the branching of the rivers?

Nice connection to the rose blooming.  I like the equation of the staircase and blood.  We have a literal representation of the bloody staircase when Arya is assigned to wash the stairs at Harrenhal (impregnated with blood in the mortar in any case), however smearing her bloody hands on the stairs as she washes, crawling around on hands and knees.  GRRM even uses the expression 'bloody steps' to make the connection:

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A Clash of Kings - Arya VII

One of the soldiers laughed. "The Footmen, girl. Toes of the Goat. Lord Tywin's Bloody Mummers."

"Pease for wits. You get her flayed, you can scrub the bloody steps," said Weese.

 

A Clash of Kings - Arya VII

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.

Arya was dreaming of wolves running wild through the wood when a strong hand clamped down over her mouth like smooth warm stone, solid and unyielding. She woke at once, squirming and struggling. "A girl says nothing," a voice whispered close behind her ear. "A girl keeps her lips closed, no one hears, and friends may talk in secret. Yes?"

 

A Clash of Kings - Arya VII

She thought of him again the next morning, when lack of sleep made her yawn. "Weasel," Weese purred, "next time I see that mouth droop open, I'll pull out your tongue and feed it to my bitch." He twisted her ear between his fingers to make certain she'd heard, and told her to get back to those steps, he wanted them clean down to the third landing by nightfall.

As she worked, Arya thought about the people she wanted dead. She pretended she could see their faces on the steps, and scrubbed harder to wipe them away.

Is washing the bloody steps the same as burning them?  Arya imagines the faces of her enemies on the steps, so washing away the faces along with their blood and their names is like erasing them from history.

And of course when people say someone is their 'blood', it's usually by shared DNA.  The 'bloodriders' of the Dothraki are an interesting exception, however, calling themselves 'blood of my blood' hinting that they are willing to die for their Khal or Khaleesi, regardless of shared DNA or not:

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Every khal had his bloodriders. At first Dany had thought of them as a kind of Dothraki Kingsguard, sworn to protect their lord, but it went further than that. Jhiqui had taught her that a bloodrider was more than a guard; they were the khal's brothers, his shadows, his fiercest friends. "Blood of my blood," Drogo called them, and so it was; they shared a single life. The ancient traditions of the horselords demanded that when the khal died, his bloodriders died with him, to ride at his side in the night lands. If the khal died at the hands of some enemy, they lived only long enough to avenge him, and then followed him joyfully into the grave. In some khalasars, Jhiqui said, the bloodriders shared the khal's wine, his tent, and even his wives, though never his horses. A man's mount was his own.

(AGOT - Daenerys IV)

A woman's flowering specifically is associated with the ability to pass on the DNA, so menstruation can be seen as an awakening of the DNA and its heritable power, or in poetic terms the ignition of the ladder.  There's also the pun on 'rose' the flower and 'rose' as in resurrection/ascension of the ladder.  So if the rose is the blood and the blood the ladder, then what about Lyanna and her blue rose petals -- the 'blue eyes of death' splashed across the sky...'A storm of rose petals blew across a blood-streaked sky, as blue as the eyes of death'?  In other words, what is Lyanna's connection to 'blue blood'?

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In relation to the burning of the spiral staircase, burning sacrificed blood is the basic component to a magical spell. Just look at Sansa burning the blossomed moonblood from her red flower on the mattress to prevent her marriage to Joffrey. The burning of the library is also an acting of burning blood since living history is written in blood per Rodrik the Reader and the inky pages of the books in that library were at one time living history so they should be considered history books of dried blood. 

Stunning insight!  'Books of dried blood' = 'killing words'?!  In the end, the DNA is also just a code -- a language borne like a ship on the red tide of history.

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"There is more coin in cheese than I knew," said Tyrion. "How did you accomplish that?"

The magister waggled his fat fingers. "Some contracts are writ in ink, and some in blood. I say no more."

The dwarf pondered that.  

(ADWD - Tyrion II)

Promises are made with blood.  'The prince who was promised' is a cornerstone of a pact? e.g. Theon as the Stark ward was a 'contract writ in blood', the blood price exacted from the Iron Islands in order to keep Balon in line and provide surety.

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"Ramsay Bolton, Lord of Winterfell, he signs himself. But there are other names as well." Lady Dustin, Lady Cerwyn, and four Ryswells had appended their own signatures beneath his. Beside them was drawn a crude giant, the mark of some Umber.

Those were done in maester's ink, made of soot and coal tar, but the message above was scrawled in brown in a huge, spiky hand. It spoke of the fall of Moat Cailin, of the triumphant return of the Warden of the North to his domains, of a marriage soon to be made. The first words were, "I write this letter in the blood of ironmen," the last, "I send you each a piece of prince. Linger in my lands, and share his fate."

Asha had believed her little brother dead. Better dead than this. The scrap of skin had fallen into her lap. She held it to the candle and watched the smoke curl up, until the last of it had been consumed and the flame was licking at her fingers.

(ADWD - The Wayward Bride)

Theon's skin is like parchment; his blood like ink.  His fertility has been appropriated by another.

 

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There is also another reference in the episode that many do not realize is a reference to this and it is Bran's words to Littlefinger; "Choas is a ladder". When something is "spiraling out of control" it is in chaos. And Bran did climb and didn't cause chaos but exposed it. 

 

Ooh, intriguing.  It's interesting that you think Bran and Littlefinger have opposing motives, although they both like to climb.

You know who else 'spirals'...the three-eyed crow together with Bran falling!  So spiralling precedes the awakening of the third eye.

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A Game of Thrones - Bran III

How do you know? Have you ever tried?

The voice was high and thin. Bran looked around to see where it was coming from. A crow was spiraling down with him, just out of reach, following him as he fell. "Help me," he said.

I'm trying, the crow replied. Say, got any corn?

 

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And RR you are corrected on Dany spiraling and in that scene was spiral downward into a pit of darkness with the Undying. 

Yeah, there are a lot of spiral staircases going down into pits, crypts, hollow hills, etc.

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EDT: I also suspect that Martin's taking of eyes, teeth, scalps with hair, fingers, skin, bones, ears, is connected to the physical loss of identity, or the loss of someone's DNA. All of those things are used to identify people. And why they are sacrificed.

Melisandre talks about using those things to steal someone's identity and weave a glamour:

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"The bones help," said Melisandre. "The bones remember. The strongest glamors are built of such things. A dead man's boots, a hank of hair, a bag of fingerbones. With whispered words and prayer, a man's shadow can be drawn forth from such and draped about another like a cloak. The wearer's essence does not change, only his seeming."

(ADWD - Melisandre I)

The easiest way, however, to steal someone's DNA is to have sex with them!  Littlefinger the mockingbird + Lysa the fish = Robin the cuckoo and Jon Arryn the cuckold.  No falcons anymore in the Eyrie!  An example of Littlefinger like Lann brightening his 'heirs/hairs'...

Another way of stealing someone's DNA, which can be understood as stealing someone's legacy or birthright, is to prevent someone from having sex, in some way obstructing the sexual consummation that might result in the conception of a child; in effect, suppressing one person's DNA in favor of another:  for example, Cersei refers to having tricked Robert out of his heirs, referring to cannibalising his children, 'in the darkness I would eat your heirs' (similarly, I believe Lysa selectively aborted Jon Arryn's children, in order to only give birth to Littlefinger's):

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Ten thousand of your children perished in my palm, Your Grace, she thought, slipping a third finger into Myr. Whilst you snored, I would lick your sons off my face and fingers one by one, all those pale sticky princes. You claimed your rights, my lord, but in the darkness I would eat your heirs. Taena gave a shudder. She gasped some words in a foreign tongue, then shuddered again and arched her back and screamed. She sounds as if she is being gored, the queen thought. For a moment she let herself imagine that her fingers were a bore's tusks, ripping the Myrish woman apart from groin to throat.

(AFFC - Cersei VII)

It gave Cersei great satisfaction to deny Robert of his heirs, instead replacing them with her own incestuous progeny with her brother Jaime.  The substitution of one man's genetic material for another represents a blood theft, and by posing as the children of another (in this case, Jaime passing off his own children as Robert's with Cersei's collusion) we can say that this constitutes not only a blood theft but the theft of a name.  What's actually been stolen is the name 'Baratheon' with all its attendant privileges which allows Jaime and Cersei to climb their ambitious ladder; the same way Lysa and Littlefinger have stolen the Arryn name -- Sweetrobin is their bastard -- and now Littlefinger triumphantly sits atop the falcon's nest (ironically the 'Lord Protector' of the nest he raided), his meteoric rise having been afforded on the back of a name bought with blood, other people's blood.  Names and blood are intimately related, as demonstrated in the example given above of how Arya imagines the faces of the people she'd like to kill represented as the names on her list written in blood on the stairs she's scrubbing.  People are killed for their name alone, regardless of actual genetic endowment.  Likewise, bearing one name instead of another may be life-saving.  Sometimes having no name at all, or at least a nondescript one such as those given to bastards, is the safest policy, as you demonstrated with the 'nemo' catch referring to how Odysseus outwitted the cyclops.  When Bran 'climbed the ladder' which threatened to expose the truth of the theft committed by the Lannisters, being stripped of the name 'Baratheon' would have been tantamount to a death sentence for the twins' children and likely Cersei herself as well as Jaime.  Bran was silenced because of something he might say, a name he might speak or more accurately cause to be unspoken.  Have you seen my latest post on the poetry thread 'the love that dare not speak its name' in which Jaime is compared to Oscar Wilde?  In the final accounting, Bran's blood was spilled in order to preserve the Baratheon name.  'Only death can pay for life,' a maxim so often repeated it's almost trite.  The more insidious relation would be that only death pays for a name.  Otherwise stated, the sword pays for the word!  

Thus, via this digression we are now in a position to answer the question raised by Shakespeare, 'What's in a name?' and 'By any other name would a rose indeed smell as sweet as Juliet contends?'  

 

 Jul.  ’Tis but thy name that is my enemy;  
Thou art thyself though, not a Montague.  
What’s Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot,  
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part         45
Belonging to a man. O! be some other name:  
What’s in a name? that which we call a rose  
By any other name would smell as sweet;  
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call’d,  
Retain that dear perfection which he owes         50
Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name;  
And for that name, which is no part of thee,  
Take all myself.

Romeo and Juliet, Act II Scene II

 

Juliet's romantic illusions notwithstanding, the truth is that names do matter; names change perception; names have the power to both bless and curse those who bear them, depending on the name at stake; and names can kill.  

I wonder if this flower would smell as sweet to Dany, once its true name is revealed?  ;)

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. . . . mother of dragons, slayer of lies . . . Her silver was trotting through the grass, to a darkling stream beneath a sea of stars. A corpse stood at the prow of a ship, eyes bright in his dead face, grey lips smiling sadly. A blue flower grew from a chink in a wall of ice, and filled the air with sweetness. . . . mother of dragons, bride of fire . . .

(ACOK - Daenerys IV)

 

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I also suspect it is a nod to Ten Thousand Leagues under the sea. Captain Nemo aka Captain "I give what is due" in Latin and Captain No One, whose ship is the Nautilus. 

P.S. the reason why 'no one' collects what is due to the Many Faced God is because it is a nod towards Nemo. 

What a great catch!

'I give what is due' -- 'I know I know, owe owe owe!'  Patchface as debt collector.

On 8/11/2017 at 6:22 PM, LmL said:

Cool! Glad you caught it (and @Pain killer Jane too!). I am going to do a more organized presentation of these ideas with History of Westeros on Sunday afternoon at 3:00 est, on their YouTube channel. 

Sounds good!

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I think my dumb ass said "iris" when I meant pupil at one point, but hopefully people get the idea. The moon is a black hole eye, it is known. 

I thought it was very eloquent -- 'poetic' even...;)  

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That's all fantastic, thank you - we've discussed some of these ideas before but kind of scattered about. Great to take a look at all the spiral and stair associations (thanks to @Pain killer Jane too!) in one place. So let me ask, given everything you said, how do you interpret the spirals being both over the sun and the tree?

 

Perhaps the spiral signifies the portal, with the implication that both points (i.e. tree and sun) are connected via that portal (sort of like seeing an underground train station sign, with the implication that there is a line running between two or more  points, not restricted to the station). I've always loved PK's 'penny tree' -- the embodiment of the human will, a wishing well, and a graphic demonstration that there is a price for knowledge ('a penny for your thoughts'...!)  The penny tree, after all, signifies 'Lightbringer' -- the dagger stuck between the Teats of Nissa Nissa (Asha's 'suckling babe').  The copper-plated tree is a great electrical conductor, as we discussed, with the copper disks alluding to the Dornish kingdom (the sun and spear), so that's a perfect image of the tree conducting the energy harvested from the sun, serving as a lightning rod tethering heaven and earth.  In 'real life' in any case, most life on the planet depends on the trees and other plants capturing the energy of the sun via photosynthesis (even trees with red leaves have chlorophyll pigment).  Our weirwoods enjoy a bit of blood, so we might ask ourselves if there's really any difference between blood and sun, blood and fire -- it's all fuel.  Yes, it's a 'stairway to heaven' (cue Led Zeppelin :)).  

I've shared this art work with PK before, but in case you missed it, check out William Blake's famous painting of 'Jacob's ladder or Jacob's dream' depicting the spiral staircase connecting the dreamer to the sun via a striking corkscrew configuration (note the narrow end of the corkscrew is boring into the sun), which we can read in our context as an allegory of the greenseer stealing the fire of the gods via the stairway to heaven.  I love how Blake depicts the vision issuing or rather emanating  from the head of the dreamer, which rests on the lowest step of the spiral connecting his mind and spirit all the way to the sun, while wraithlike figures or white-cloaked shadows ascend and descend the pathway.  In our context, it's reminiscent of Jaime having his weirwood dream, while resting his head against the weirwood stump which mysteriously brings him back to Winterfell ('Stark is that you..?'  Yes, dear Jaime, just not the Stark you were expecting...).  If Jaime is the sun (as you keep insisting...), then we have the sun resting his head against a decapitated weirwood, which taken together = the burning bush right there!

 

'I am a wizard: who but I

Sets the cool head aflame with smoke?'

 

From 'Song of Amergin', translated by Robert Graves in 'The White Goddess'

Another version of the same line:  

 

'I am the God that puts fire in the head.'

 

If you scroll down in the same linked article, there's another painting of Blake's 'The Sea of Time and Space' which also might interest us, particularly since the spiral staircase in question begins at the root of a tree winding around a mass of human bodies which seem to be floating in an underground sea.  To be exact, there are several such trees forming a canopy over the spiral staircase.  There's a further drawing by Blake which I have a feeling you might like, in which Blake again depicts the dream of the poet-seer, this time with the dream issuing from the dreamer's erect penis which merges with Satan's foot!  He's dreaming about Lucifer, whom he calls 'the Accuser of this World...the Son of Morn...'  (the dreamer has a white staff over the head of which a spider has woven a web -- what do you think that means?).

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But of course. I thought of you as soon as I saw that picture! Astro-Bran!

Ha ha!  It's Icarus.  Every flight begins with a fall, and every fall begins with a flight.  

 

On 8/11/2017 at 6:48 PM, Pain killer Jane said:

That I have no answer to. Captain Nemo from Ten Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, was named as a reference to Odysseus. Odysseus used the name when he killed a cannibal cyclops. The cyclops wanted to know the name of the man who killed him so he could call down a curse on him. Odysseus said his name was Nemo, Greek for no one. However, in the Latin transliteration of Nemo it is meant as "I give what is due". Basically saying that the cyclops was due its death for eating the washed up sailors and hoarding the sheep. Btw Odysseus is also the one to come up with the Trojan Horse, a wooden gift horse that was filled with betrayal and poison.  

Edt: I think I do have an answer. Nemo was named for Captain Nemo in the sense of no one but as in a no one is an anybody type of philosophy. The movie wanted to pass on a feel good message about family and by naming Nemo, Nemo they were saying hey this can be anybody's kid. And since fairy tales were meant to be life lessons there you go. 

So interesting.

On 8/11/2017 at 6:58 PM, Pain killer Jane said:

Well, the way I interpret it is that it is penny tree. The tree is piercing the ground and red leaves is blood blossoming from it. As to the sun, I would say it is sun rays but in the context of sacrifice and the acquisition of secret knowledge, it is Lann's stealing of fire to paint his hair blond which would make it the same as the tree. Does that make sense? 

The tree is the same as the sun?  I see the tree as having harvested the sun -- not sure that makes it equivalent to the sun though.  Can you elaborate please?

On 8/11/2017 at 7:36 PM, LmL said:

Yes, it makes sense - I think we are all beating around the same burning bush,

:P

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i just wanted to see how you and RR would phrase it. It's the Stairway to Heaven, the ladder to reach the fire of the gods. 

And who are the best climbers?  Bran, Arya, Jon, and Littlefinger.  

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Also Euron's Valyrian steel armor has glyphs and whorls.

Interesting.

On 8/11/2017 at 8:13 PM, Pain killer Jane said:

yup. Nice pun. And it is also a downward spiral into a pit of darkness. Eating from the tree of good and evil is called the Fall of Man after all. 

Good point.  It reminds me of the game of 'snakes and ladders'!

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I hope D&D put Euron's armor on screen. I wonder if it could stand up to dragon fire. 

Oh and one thing I wanted to say about the spiral staircase being blood. It is hinted at by the proverb of "Bricks and Blood built Astapor, Bricks and Blood, its people." DNA is after all the building blocks of life. 

:)

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From:  wikipedia List of Dreams

Benzene

The scientist Friedrich August Kekulé discovered the seemingly impossible chemical structure of benzene (C6H6) when he had a dream of a group of snakes swallowing their tails.

Double Helix structure of DNA

Nobel laureate James Watson opens TED 2005 with the frank and funny story of how he and his research partner, Francis Crick, discovered the structure of DNA. James Watson, co-discoverer of the structure of DNA, reported stumbling upon the double helix image for the DNA chain through his dream of a spiral staircase.

 

 

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Panting, she squatted and spread her legs. Blood ran down her thighs, black as ink. Her cry might have been agony or ecstasy or both. And Davos saw the crown of the child's head push its way out of her. Two arms wriggled free, grasping, black fingers coiling around Melisandre's straining thighs, pushing, until the whole of the shadow slid out into the world and rose taller than Davos, tall as the tunnel, towering above the boat. He had only an instant to look at it before it was gone, twisting between the bars of the portcullis and racing across the surface of the water, but that instant was long enough.

He knew that shadow. As he knew the man who'd cast it.

4 hours ago, ravenous reader said:

Hi PK - Ha! - I knew the Mistress of the Serpentine Steps could be summoned with the right whispered word ('DNA')!  I've missed you too.  :wub:   No worries -- I know the red jaguar, prowling the whitewashed steps under the sweet nostalgic fragrance of the lime trees and the silver sideways glance of the glimmering moon, is never far away...;)

Absolutely! And I love every word in this. 

4 hours ago, ravenous reader said:

Yes, I was thinking of you with 'phi' --  didn't you have a theory on the branching of the rivers?

Well, I have two. The first one I have is the theory that the symbolism of the location of the head waters of each fork of the Trident corresponds to one of the forgings of Lightbringer. 

The second is related to PHI. It corresponds to the meandering of rivers. Since the Trident is said to have meandered away from underneath the Crossroad Inns, I thought this was significant. In real life, rivers meander according to a measure of 1.94 which is PI (3.14) divided by PHI. I thought at first the meandering away from the Crossroad Inns was just a bit of world building on George's part but a bend in the Red Fork is the location of the Inn of the Kneeling Man; complete pun there with the Inn of bending a knee at a bend in a river. And bends in rivers is where meandering takes place (a wrinkle if you will ;)). Now, this is unremarkable in and of itself but Hot Pie (PI) is there now. It may just be a coincidence and the meandering of rivers is just a bit of world building but the River of time speech by BR to Bran, the river full of bodies and river water being blood, makes me think otherwise. That last part is related to something that I suspect in concern to Riverrun. I suspect that Martin is hinting at Riverrun being ......"and the rivers of Egypt ran red with blood" Old Testament symbolism. Partially due to Edmure believing the comet has Tully Red but the Blackfish says it is blood and the Tully Red comes from the color of the red mud of the Red Fork. So in a roundabout way, the Red Fork is the red because of Tully blood. Sometimes my mind runs away with me. 

4 hours ago, ravenous reader said:

Nice connection to the rose blooming.  I like the equation of the staircase and blood.  We have a literal representation of the bloody staircase when Arya is assigned to wash the stairs at Harrenhal (impregnated with blood in the mortar in any case), however smearing her bloody hands on the stairs as she washes, crawling around on hands and knees.  GRRM even uses the expression 'bloody steps' to make the connection:

This is my favorite scene because it is so overt with the bloody staircase. And what is incredible about the 'bloody steps' and the staircase that when it is laying down on its side like a felled tree, it is a footpath of step stones. So this comment brings in the Stepstones on the broken arm of Drone where the first men meandered their way into Westeros. 

And thank you for the compliment. 

5 hours ago, ravenous reader said:

Is washing the bloody steps the same as burning them?  Arya imagines the faces of her enemies on the steps, so washing away the faces along with their blood and their names is like erasing them from history.

For Arya, it is since she wants a burning sword to kill those very same people on her list. And yes it is, exactly like that. And here is something lemon juice also takes out ink stains.

5 hours ago, ravenous reader said:

And of course when people say someone is their 'blood', it's usually by shared DNA.  The 'bloodriders' of the Dothraki are an interesting exception, however, calling themselves 'blood of my blood' hinting that they are willing to die for their Khal or Khaleesi, regardless of shared DNA or not

Those same men were also called copper shadows. And look at this

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Panting, she squatted and spread her legs. Blood ran down her thighs, black as ink. Her cry might have been agony or ecstasy or both. And Davos saw the crown of the child's head push its way out of her. Two arms wriggled free, grasping, black fingers coiling around Melisandre's straining thighs, pushing, until the whole of the shadow slid out into the world and rose taller than Davos, tall as the tunnel, towering above the boat. He had only an instant to look at it before it was gone, twisting between the bars of the portcullis and racing across the surface of the water, but that instant was long enough.
He knew that shadow. As he knew the man who'd cast it.
-Davos II, aCoK
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 And the brothers of the NWs also consider themselves sharing the same black blood. 

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Mormont stood before the altar, the rainbow shining on his broad bald head. "You came to us outlaws," he began, "poachers, rapers, debtors, killers, and thieves. You came to us children. You came to us alone, in chains, with neither friends nor honor. You came to us rich, and you came to us poor. Some of you bear the names of proud houses. Others have only bastards' names, or no names at all. It makes no matter. All that is past now. On the Wall, we are all one house.
"At evenfall, as the sun sets and we face the gathering night, you shall take your vows. From that moment, you will be a Sworn Brother of the Night's Watch. Your crimes will be washed away, your debts forgiven. So too you must wash away your former loyalties, put aside your grudges, forget old wrongs and old loves alike. Here you begin anew.
 
-Jon VI, aGoT
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Here the brothers are doing the reverse of Arya. They are washing away grudges but she is invoking the same motif in order to up hold those grudges.

 

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52 minutes ago, Pain killer Jane said:

Well, I have two. The first one I have is the theory that the symbolism of the location of the head waters of each fork of the Trident corresponds to one of the forgings of Lightbringer. 

The second is related to PHI. It corresponds to the meandering of rivers. Since the Trident is said to have meandered away from underneath the Crossroad Inns, I thought this was significant. In real life, rivers meander according to a measure of 1.94 which is PI (3.14) divided by PHI. I thought at first the meandering away from the Crossroad Inns was just a bit of world building on George's part but a bend in the Red Fork is the location of the Inn of the Kneeling Man; complete pun there with the Inn of bending a knee at a bend in a river. And bends in rivers is where meandering takes place (a wrinkle if you will ;)). Now, this is unremarkable in and of itself but Hot Pie (PI) is there now. It may just be a coincidence and the meandering of rivers is just a bit of world building but the River of time speech by BR to Bran, the river full of bodies and river water being blood, makes me think otherwise. That last part is related to something that I suspect in concern to Riverrun. I suspect that Martin is hinting at Riverrun being ......"and the rivers of Egypt ran red with blood" Old Testament symbolism. Partially due to Edmure believing the comet has Tully Red but the Blackfish says it is blood and the Tully Red comes from the color of the red mud of the Red Fork. So in a roundabout way, the Red Fork is the red because of Tully blood. Sometimes my mind runs away with me. 

Hey PKJane, glad to see you back.  Your Odyssey "no one" find is great and got me to looking into that cyclops some more.  Is this river theory you are speaking of involve the story of the love triangle of Acis, Galatea, and the Cyclops Polyphemus?  In that one the cyclops kills the lover of the woman he wants with a boulder only to have him reborn as a river and the spirit of that river by Galatea.  Sounds a lot like @Crowfood's Daughter's Grey King being struck down by Garth only to be reborn from her mermaid's kiss.  I think that The Grey King's death by storm hammering, which is told to us in the story of Durran Godsgrief, is the first "failed" forging of Lightbringer, one where he serves as Nissa Nissa just like water fills the Nissa Nissa role in first forging in the myth.  I am tempted to think you may be coming to similar conclusions through different means which has me feeling optimistic.          

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On 8/12/2017 at 2:06 PM, ravenous reader said:

A woman's flowering specifically is associated with the ability to pass on the DNA, so menstruation can be seen as an awakening of the DNA and its heritable power, or in poetic terms the ignition of the ladder.  There's also the pun on 'rose' the flower and 'rose' as in resurrection/ascension of the ladder.  So if the rose is the blood and the blood the ladder, then what about Lyanna and her blue rose petals -- the 'blue eyes of death' splashed across the sky...'A storm of rose petals blew across a blood-streaked sky, as blue as the eyes of death'?  In other words, what is Lyanna's connection to 'blue blood'?

 

This is fantastic. I couldn't put it better. This is partially why Tyrion symbolically climbed that burning ladder/Tree during his wedding to Sansa. 

In terms of Lyanna, while I am tempted to say Blue Blood= nobility or royalty and therefore Jon is royalty, I feel that is just a superficial interpretation. 

Now the blue blood splashed across the sky and being the eyes of death is the realm of @LmL and therefore would be another image of the comets raining down upon Planetos. Lyanna is Nyssa Nyssa bleeding blue blood, ichor or blood of the gods since the blood of the Others is blue and they are considered Gods by some people; the people of the frozen shore, Craster being a Godly man. Death is a god according to the Faith and technically if R'hllor is a god than the Great Other would also have to be a god. 

On 8/12/2017 at 2:06 PM, ravenous reader said:

Stunning insight!  'Books of dried blood' = 'killing words'?!  In the end, the DNA is also just a code -- a language borne like a ship on the red tide of history.

Thank you. :blush: And yup. Your insight of the word blue written in red blood in Tyrion's sky cell clued me into it. That too was dried blood. The other half was why the Penrose (note the name) was given a few marriages to the royal family and the death of Ser Courtney Penrose by Stannis and Mel's shadow baby. And it is very interesting that a family that has this motif of writing has a Dragon Princess ghost writing for her husband, Lord Ronnel Penrose. Mel's shadow baby killing Ser Courtney Penrose is an elaborate theme of books of dried blood being burned. EDt: and it is blood washing out blood in that scene so it would be Arya washing the blood out with more blood on the staircase. 

On 8/12/2017 at 2:06 PM, ravenous reader said:

Promises are made with blood.  'The prince who was promised' is a cornerstone of a pact? e.g. Theon as the Stark ward was a 'contract writ in blood', the blood price exacted from the Iron Islands in order to keep Balon in line and provide surety.

Quote

"Ramsay Bolton, Lord of Winterfell, he signs himself. But there are other names as well." Lady Dustin, Lady Cerwyn, and four Ryswells had appended their own signatures beneath his. Beside them was drawn a crude giant, the mark of some Umber.

Those were done in maester's ink, made of soot and coal tar, but the message above was scrawled in brown in a huge, spiky hand. It spoke of the fall of Moat Cailin, of the triumphant return of the Warden of the North to his domains, of a marriage soon to be made. The first words were, "I write this letter in the blood of ironmen," the last, "I send you each a piece of prince. Linger in my lands, and share his fate."

Asha had believed her little brother dead. Better dead than this. The scrap of skin had fallen into her lap. She held it to the candle and watched the smoke curl up, until the last of it had been consumed and the flame was licking at her fingers.

(ADWD - The Wayward Bride)

Theon's skin is like parchment; his blood like ink.  His fertility has been appropriated by another.

Yes they are. These kinds of promises are not pinky promises between children these are promises that when sworn to be kept is accompanied with "cross your heart and hope to die" at the end. 

And with the burning of his skin, Asha is invoking a ritual here. She is thinking that her brother is better off dead so I have to wonder if her brother will die because of this. It is interesting that blood of Ironmen is brown like mud. 

On 8/12/2017 at 2:06 PM, ravenous reader said:

Ooh, intriguing.  It's interesting that you think Bran and Littlefinger have opposing motives, although they both like to climb.

It mostly boils down to intent. I could see Bran becoming Littlefinger. He was becoming moody, spiteful, and resentful of his handicap before the Reeds came to tell him he needed to go North. He was even punishing the Walders from time to time. I see that spitefulness against his lack of martial prowess to be one of the coalescing factors of why Littlefinger is the way he is. 

On 8/12/2017 at 2:06 PM, ravenous reader said:
Quote

EDT: I also suspect that Martin's taking of eyes, teeth, scalps with hair, fingers, skin, bones, ears, is connected to the physical loss of identity, or the loss of someone's DNA. All of those things are used to identify people. And why they are sacrificed.

Melisandre talks about using those things to steal someone's identity and weave a glamour:

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"The bones help," said Melisandre. "The bones remember. The strongest glamors are built of such things. A dead man's boots, a hank of hair, a bag of fingerbones. With whispered words and prayer, a man's shadow can be drawn forth from such and draped about another like a cloak. The wearer's essence does not change, only his seeming."

(ADWD - Melisandre I)

Nice catch. I was thinking more along the lines as trophies (like the Blackears), good luck charms (Davos and his fingerbones), and the outward expression of DNA that people place value on. Take for example Jaime's examination of Pia after the mountain punched her. Pia's charm was in her fair face till the Mountain punched and knocked out her teeth and he says she isn't so pretty anymore. 

Now to Mel's use of such things. Personally, I think she is wrong with the assumption that the wearer's essence does not change only his seeming. Martin is clearly pointing to warging humans here with dead man's boots. And we know that warging does change the warg and their other half. And a hank of hair alongside cloak is pointing at Huzzhor Amai with his cloak made from the skin of the skin of the hairy man. 

On 8/12/2017 at 2:06 PM, ravenous reader said:

What a great catch!

'I give what is due' -- 'I know I know, owe owe owe!'  Patchface as debt collector

 

Exactly. It would be funny if George made Patchface, a debt collector and a fool because the deadline for filing taxes is in April and the first day of that month is April's Fool's Day. 

On 8/12/2017 at 2:06 PM, ravenous reader said:

The penny tree, after all, signifies 'Lightbringer' -- the dagger stuck between the Teats of Nissa Nissa (Asha's 'suckling babe').

And you know thinking in terms of the image of Penny Tree with blood blossoming out and the suckling babe, it can be considered a leech. That's another link to swords drinking blood and light etc. etc. and the second interpretation of why Mel used leeches in the ritual with Stannis to kill the other kings instead of just pouring some blood in a fire and saying some words. 

 

 

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57 minutes ago, Unchained said:

Hey PKJane, glad to see you back.

Hey, Unchained. Thank you :blush: .

58 minutes ago, Unchained said:

Your Odyssey "no one" find is great and got me to looking into that cyclops some more.  Is this river theory you are speaking of involve the story of the love triangle of Acis, Galatea, and the Cyclops Polyphemus?  In that one the cyclops kills the lover of the woman he wants with a boulder only to have him reborn as a river and the spirit of that river by Galatea.  Sounds a lot like @Crowfood's Daughter's Grey King being struck down by Garth only to be reborn from her mermaid's kiss.  I think that The Grey King's death by storm hammering, which is told to us in the story of Durran Godsgrief, is the first "failed" forging of Lightbringer, one where he serves as Nissa Nissa just like water fills the Nissa Nissa role in first forging in the myth.  I am tempted to think you may be coming to similar conclusions through different means which has me feeling optimistic.          

I have never come across that story. But that is super interesting. In terms of Greek River God stories, the only one I am familiar with is the story of the cornucopia where Heracles wrestled the river god and took his horn as a trophy. 

Now The Grey King serving as the forging of the water Lightbringer is incredible. Thinking on that, that could be why the Night's King is linked with the Grey King and Lady Stoneheart. He would be a broken sword and a broken sword can still kill. 

And it could be we are thinking of the same thing. My first theory is mostly geared towards examining the head water locations of each fork. Take, for example, the head waters of the Green Fork originates in the Neck, with Greywater Watch as the dominating feature there. Greywater is a term for water that is contaminated with chemicals. It has a related term, Blackwater, which is for water contaminated with biologicals such feces and urine. It is apt that Bronn is of the Blackwater and on the show, they keep making fun of 'shit heap' he comes from. 

Now not to digress. The water from the neck is then transformed green due to the color leeching into the water from the moss.   But this act of changing something grey to green is a whitewashing motif. I don't really know where to go from there. And currently, with all the dead bodies in the Green Fork from the Red Wedding I would call it a Black Fork.

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8 hours ago, ravenous reader said:

The easiest way, however, to steal someone's DNA is to have sex with them!  Littlefinger the mockingbird + Lysa the fish = Robin the cuckoo and Jon Arryn the cuckold.  No falcons anymore in the Eyrie!  An example of Littlefinger like Lann brightening his 'heirs/hairs'...

Another way of stealing someone's DNA, which can be understood as stealing someone's legacy or birthright, is to prevent someone from having sex, in some way obstructing the sexual consummation that might result in the conception of a child; in effect, suppressing one person's DNA in favor of another:  for example, Cersei refers to having tricked Robert out of his heirs, referring to cannibalising his children, 'in the darkness I would eat your heirs' (similarly, I believe Lysa selectively aborted Jon Arryn's children, in order to only give birth to Littlefinger's):

Yes you are right! I agree that Lysa probably practiced selective breeding. She wanted revenge on her father for making her abort her first child and she directed her hate for her father towards Jon Arryn.

In all honesty, Cersei saying that made me want to vomit. And something to consider, Cersei is in a sense castrating Robert with the loss of his heirs. And we know that the sacrificing of fertility is often times a precursor to obtaining secret knowledge i.e. the Maesters in the Citadel and even Varys's mummery. 

I have a lot more for you tomorrow on the names topic. But I have to gather my thought. Just know that it is brilliant and it is a theme. The name Lorian comes to mind as falling out of favor, and Manderly's curse about Rhaegar Frey, saying that he is "smirking worm that wears a dragon's name," and Walder Frey's children trying to find favor in him by naming their offspring Walder or Walda. 

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On 11.08.2017 at 9:16 PM, ravenous reader said:

In general, the spiral is associated with magic and the acquisition of arcane and often forbidden knowledge.  Accordingly, both our prinicipal magical protagonists-antagonists, namely the weirwood roots and the dragons, are said to 'coil,' a synonym for spiral.  A while back if I recall correctly, @Blue Tiger was involved in a detailed discussion with someone about spirals and 'whorls' (basically another synonym for spiral) -- perhaps he could tell us more.  Notably, such motifs are found in the house of the undying and the dragon eggs.  So perhaps hatching a dragon from stone is another way of winkling truth out of a damnable book?  A sea/see dragon hatches from a sea/seeshell, no?

It wasn't my post or discussion, I was just a go-between, as usually.

http://asoiaf.westeros.org/index.php?/topic/144477-skinchanger-zombies-jon-the-last-hero-and-coldhands/&page=14#comment-7828318

 

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On 8/12/2017 at 2:06 PM, ravenous reader said:
On 8/11/2017 at 3:58 PM, Pain killer Jane said:

Well, the way I interpret it is that it is penny tree. The tree is piercing the ground and red leaves is blood blossoming from it. As to the sun, I would say it is sun rays but in the context of sacrifice and the acquisition of secret knowledge, it is Lann's stealing of fire to paint his hair blond which would make it the same as the tree. Does that make sense? 

The tree is the same as the sun?  I see the tree as having harvested the sun -- not sure that makes it equivalent to the sun though.  Can you elaborate please?

Well the tree for me is the keeper of secret knowledge, the path by which the secret knowledge is gained, and is transformed by the secret knowledge. Lann had secret knowledge, took the sun's fire (path), and was transformed by the knowledge. Now the sun is as well. It had secret knowledge, it was a path to secret knowledge, and it was transformed by secret knowledge. 

Climbing a tree is a typical type of path but the tree itself is the path. The sun is as well. The object can be a path to secret knowledge. That is why we keep seeing lucky penny women sacrificed as a way to get heroes. The Lucky penny woman is a path, a keeper, and is later transformed by the secret knowledge. 

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22 hours ago, Pain killer Jane said:

In all honesty, Cersei saying that made me want to vomit. And something to consider, Cersei is in a sense castrating Robert with the loss of his heirs. And we know that the sacrificing of fertility is often times a precursor to obtaining secret knowledge i.e. the Maesters in the Citadel and even Varys's mummery. 

Yea it is the sort of thing you need a shower after reading.  I have a lot I want to say, but in the name of keeping it short, Cersei is like the lion that Lann sneaks into Casterly Rock that eats the trueborn sons of House Casterly. Tywin-as-Lann gets Robert to marry her thereby sneaking her into the Rock.  Jaime-as-Lann takes advantage of that to remove rivals for his bastard to rule.  Doubt I am the first to think that, but I have not seen it said.  

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