Where Whores Go

[Unchained]

On 11/20/2017 at 5:22 PM, ravenous reader said:

Great catch @Darry Man!  

Another synonym for 'hoar(frost)' with literary significance is the word 'rime' as in Lanford Wilson's play entitled 'The Rimers of Eldritch,' in which the 'rime' is interpreted to symbolically connote the 'candy-coating' or 'veil' masking the moral corruption within a community.  This fits with the speculation of the Others as a representation of some archetypal abomination having taken place, giving rise to the vengeful 'revenants' seeking justice -- or as @Seams has put it, 'just ice'!

There is probably also a pun on 'rime' with 'rhyme' -- but that's a story for another day...

Someone who essentially has been raped is wearing a coat of 'hoarfrost'...

Like the crown of the Queen -- not King -- of Winter.

A reckoning is due.

Nice formulation. 

On the other hand, there is a sinister subtext, as I hinted above, present in many of the scenarios involving a so-called 'hoary bitch' in which the 'whore' in question on closer inspection is actually the one who paid the highest price in the exchange, being the victim of some abomination -- as in the Varamyr-Thistle interaction I quoted above.  It is problematic, to say the least, calling the victim of a rape a 'whore'!

Other (pardon the pun...) figures embodying this dynamic include Varys who was bartered and violated, his genitals appropriated for the profit of another, whereafter Varys became a whore in earnest; the Unsullied who similarly have forgone their autonomy, specifically again regarding their genitalia; and my favourite example, the 'soiled knights' of the Kingsguard who have sold out their moral principles in service of another.  Like Varys and the Unsullied, Jaime the current LC of the Kingsguard is emasculated, both physically and morally:

 @Pain killer Jane makes a connection between the moral 'soiling' cloaking the knights to other 'white-washings' of the original sin, as it were, including bird droppings, ash, lime, and snow, such as the layer of snow covering the 'snowmen' on the battlements at Winterfell, naturally linking these to the Others.

 

 

If your whore/hoar(frost) pun holds true, then the answer might be that they go to...

Depending on how you interpret the question as to who exactly is the 'whore' -- the perpetrator of the rape, the rape victim, or the one who stood idly by in full awareness of the rape and did nothing --

the Starks are implicated in one or more of the above, probably the latter, given the association between 'watchers', 'greenseers,' and the treacherous 'far-eyes' we were introduced to in the AGOT Prologue (i.e. Will).

 

 

I love the idea of the "whore" in fact being the victim, at least initially.  Indeed prostitutes are often the victims. Cersei is the queen of whores per Jaime, and she is raped and savaged by Robert possibly showing us the early stages of the vengeful hoary Night's queen. She needs to go through an icy transformation like other fiery women who emerge from water like Dany at the Womb of the world, the woman in Bran's vision asking for children to avenge her, and Osha at Winterfell in the same pool. Hers may be her rebirth at the ice moon of the sept of Baelor on Visenya's hill. Indeed if a KG knight she had created Robert Strong fights for her it would all come together nicely. 

 

Aegon the Unworthy had a consort whose last name was OTHERys. She had his daughter, and moved to Braavos which seems to be the #1 place whores go. She starts a line of black pearls from his king's blood. They aren't like Others but more like entrapping sirens. Braavos seems to be where Tyrion's "whore" also went after being raped to also give birth to his daughter. Tyrion and fat Aegon both share an "appreciation" for women with Robert that gets into rape at times. They make "whores".  

[Springwatch]

On 20/11/2017 at 10:43 PM, Darry Man said:

In his latest livecast, @LmL brought forth the notion that Cersei was symbolically transformed into an ice-moon figure when she was imprisoned and shaved bald in the Great Sept, the huge white structure on Visenya's Hill. This represented her death and rebirth, and then she walks back to the sun-king's Red Keep in her pale glory.

I stick to this site for asoiaf stuff - it saves a world of time.

No matter, I like the theory already; it chimes with what I've been reading in Kevan's chapter: Cersei is attended by moon maidens, and her fire is quenched. (It's an ironic twist that it's feared she might corrupt the girls, when in fact the Moon has corrupted her.)

[LynnS]

It's easy to say they go to whorehouses but in the case of the Sailor's Wife, she goes to the House of Black and White once a month:

Quote

A Feast for Crows - Arya I

The city had seemed like one big island from where the Titan stood, but as Yorko rowed them closer she saw that it was many small islands close together, linked by arched stone bridges that spanned innumerable canals. Beyond the harbor she glimpsed streets of grey stone houses, built so close they leaned one upon the other. To Arya's eyes they were queer-looking, four and five stories tall and very skinny, with sharp-peaked tile roofs like pointed hats. She saw no thatch, and only a few timbered houses of the sort she knew in Westeros. They have no trees, she realized. Braavos is all stone, a grey city in a green sea.

A Feast for Crows - Arya I
"The Moonsingers led us to this place of refuge, where the dragons of Valyria could not find us," Denyo said. "Theirs is the greatest temple. We esteem the Father of Waters as well, but his house is built anew whenever he takes his bride. The rest of the gods dwell together on an isle in the center of the city. That is where you will find the . . . the Many-Faced God."

Quote

 

A Feast for Crows - Cat Of The Canals

The other whores said that the Sailor's Wife visited the Isle of the Gods on the days when her flower was in bloom, and knew all the gods who lived there, even the ones that Braavos had forgotten. They said she went to pray for her first husband, her true husband, who had been lost at sea when she was a girl no older than Lanna. "She thinks that if she finds the right god, maybe he will send the winds and blow her old love back to her," said one-eyed Yna, who had known her longest, "but I pray it never happens. Her love is dead, I could taste that in her blood. If he ever should come back to her, it will be a corpse."

 

 

[zandru]

25 minutes ago, LynnS said:

It's easy to say they go to whorehouses but in the case of the Sailor's Wife, she goes to the House of Black and White once a month:

Where does all this specify "The House of Black & White"? Your quotes talk about lots of god-houses, not just that one. And, of all the many Arya chapters where she works inside the House, she never once mentions seeing the Sailor's Wife. In fact, if the Sailor's Wife is praying for her lost husband, why go to a god-house that celebrates death?

[LynnS]

2 hours ago, zandru said:

Where does all this specify "The House of Black & White"? Your quotes talk about lots of god-houses, not just that one. And, of all the many Arya chapters where she works inside the House, she never once mentions seeing the Sailor's Wife. In fact, if the Sailor's Wife is praying for her lost husband, why go to a god-house that celebrates death?

Braavos is made up of isles, the largest of which is the House of Black and White.  Braavos itself houses many isles featuring different gods;   I've given the quotes upthread.  The Isle of the Gods is specific to the House of Black and White which venerates all the gods including the unnamed and forgotten gods.  So yes the Sailor's Wife goes to the HoB&W also called the Isle of the Gods once a month.  The fact that she is going to the HoB&W and that is hidden in the text by not naming it outright is curious and interesting.

So yes, why go to the house of the assassins at all?

[zandru]

6 hours ago, LynnS said:

The fact that she is going to the HoB&W and that is hidden in the text by not naming it outright is curious and interesting.

No, it isn't. We have an observer on hand in the House who knows the Sailor's Wife, and who never once remarks upon seeing her. This would imply that the Sailor's Wife does NOT visit this particular house, known as a place where one can hire an assassin.

[LynnS]

40 minutes ago, zandru said:

No, it isn't. We have an observer on hand in the House who knows the Sailor's Wife, and who never once remarks upon seeing her. This would imply that the Sailor's Wife does NOT visit this particular house, known as a place where one can hire an assassin.

Yes she is.  We have one-eyed Yna as a witness who says the Sailor's Wife does go the Isle of the Gods once a month.

[Darry Man]

 

Quote

"Words won't make your mother a whore. She was what she was, and nothing Toad says can change that. You know, we have men on the Wall whose mothers were whores."

• Donal Noye, AGOT

 

You don't say.

[Darry Man]

Quote

There was no place for him in Winterfell, no place in King's Landing either. Even his own mother had not had a place for him. The thought of her made him sad. He wondered who she had been, what she had looked like, why his father had left her. Because she was a whore or an adulteress, fool. Something dark and dishonorable, or else why was Lord Eddard too ashamed to speak of her?

• AGOT

Starks have a lot of shame when it comes to their hoary whores.

[Darry Man]

Quote

Far across the city, bells began to ring.

Arya glanced up, listening, wondering what the ringing meant this time.

"What's this now?" a fat man called from the pot-shop.

"The bells again, gods ha'mercy," wailed an old woman.

A red-haired whore in a wisp of painted silk pushed open a second-story window. "Is it the boy king that's died now?" she shouted down, leaning out over the street. "Ah, that's a boy for you, they never last long."

• AGOT

No, they don't.

 

[Darry Man]

On 11/22/2017 at 9:38 AM, LynnS said:

It's easy to say they go to whorehouses but in the case of the Sailor's Wife, she goes to the House of Black and White once a month:

I'm not sure if she actually goes to the HoB&W, but she does go to the Isle of Gods, i.e. the God's Eye Island.

[Darry Man]

Quote

Mole's Town was bigger than it seemed, but three quarters of it was under the ground, in deep warm cellars connected by a maze of tunnels. Even the whorehouse was down there, nothing on the surface but a wooden shack no bigger than a privy, with a red lantern over the door. One the Wall, he'd heard men call the whores "buried treasures." He wondered whether any of his brothers in black were down there tonight, mining. That was oathbreaking too, yet no one seemed to care.

• AGOT

There might be more than a few black brothers hidden with the embers under the weirwoods.

[Darry Man]

Quote

Ghost loped ahead of them. The grounds seemed deserted this morning, with so many rangers off at the brothel in Mole's Town, digging for buried treasure and drinking themselves blind. Grenn had gone with them. Pyp and Halder and Toad had offered to buy him his first woman to celebrate his first ranging. They'd wanted Jon and Sam to come as well, but Sam was almost as frightened of whores as he was of the haunted forest, and Jon had wanted to part in it. "Do what you want," he told Toad, "I took a vow."

As they passed the sept, he heard voices raised in song. Some men want whores on the eve of battle, and some want gods. Jon wondered who felt better afterward. The sept tempted him no more than the brothel; his own gods kept their temples in the wild places, where the weirwoods spread their bone-white branches. The Seven have no power beyond the Wall, he thought, but my gods will be waiting.

• ACOK

That, they will.

[Rusted Revolver]

Quote

"Words won't make your mother a whore. She was what she was, and nothing Toad says can change that. You know, we have men on the Wall whose mothers were whores."

• Donal Noye, AGOT

 

3 hours ago, Darry Man said:

 

You don't say.

Mother Rhoyne was raped by the dragons.  300 dragons.  And of all people to call her a whore... Donal Noye, one of her daughters, one of her smiths.  It's sick, and also, I understand if Nymeria is a little upset when she receives a welcome like this:

Quote

In the aftermath, the corsairs offered to allow the Rhoynar to settle upon the Isle of Toads, provided they gave up their boats and sent each king thirty virgin girls and pretty boys each year as tribute. - TWOIAF - Ten Thousand Ships

So obviously she passed on the toad's offer and kept going.  And then she was shipwrecked, drowned, and lay in the hull of the ship, a dead bloated corpse with signs of greyscale creeping up her legs.  Alas, her mighty weirdwood ship washed up onto a lonely island somewhere far away.  The wynds had blown her far.  And the Grey King saw this pale queen from his perch upon the hill - a pale maiden with a tail like a fish.  And he made her his Night Queen - she was his mermaid/seamaid/see-maid.  And ever since, blood of the ironborn have been red and black like their mother's blood on the day of her destruction.  And her children still throw themselves into the sea to become drowned men so that they too may rise stronger and harder like Nymeria.  They live their lives with damp hair, are clammy to the touch, and when winter comes, the freezing winds blow, and that dampness hardens into crystal crowns - The whore's frost, The crown of nagga's teeth.

Where do whores go?  The bottom of the ocean.  Where do they end up?  On the isles of Planetos... dead, cold, and clammy. yuck.

 

Working on some Nymeria analysis for the last few days.  This seemed to fit here. Please ignore the massive issue with historical timelines.  ha!

[LynnS]

2 hours ago, Darry Man said:

I'm not sure if she actually goes to the HoB&W, but she does go to the Isle of Gods, i.e. the God's Eye Island.

You mean she travels across the Narrow Sea and goes to that God's Eye in Westeros?

[Darry Man]

On 11/24/2017 at 6:00 PM, LynnS said:

You mean she travels across the Narrow Sea and goes to that God's Eye in Westeros?

Not literally, but metaphorically equivalent. It's GRRM's symbolism through his word play: Isle of Gods = God's I.

[LynnS]

47 minutes ago, Darry Man said:

Not literally, but metaphorically equivalent. It's GRRM's symbolism through his word play: Isle of Gods = God's I.

There are similarities between the God's Eye where every tree was given a face and the HoB&W with it's hall of faces.  The Isle of the Gods is just another name for the location of the HoB&W.  It's a major temple with it's own Isle.  It houses more than one statue of the various gods and people go there to pray.  Not everyone goes there to drink from the black cup.

Quote

A Feast for Crows - Arya II

Worshipers came to the House of Black and White every day. Most came alone and sat alone; they lit candles at one altar or another, prayed beside the pool, and sometimes wept. A few drank from the black cup and went to sleep; more did not drink. There were no services, no songs, no paeans of praise to please the god. The temple was never full. From time to time, a worshiper would ask to see a priest, and the kindly man or the waif would take him down into the sanctum, but that did not happen often.

Thirty different gods stood along the walls, surrounded by their little lights. The Weeping Woman was the favorite of old women, Arya saw; rich men preferred the Lion of Night, poor men the Hooded Wayfarer. Soldiers lit candles to Bakkalon, the Pale Child, sailors to the Moon-Pale Maiden and the Merling King. The Stranger had his shrine as well, though hardly anyone ever came to him. Most of the time only a single candle stood flickering at his feet. The kindly man said it did not matter. "He has many faces, and many ears to hear."

It's not a symbolic visit but there may be a connection between the God's Eye and the Faceless Men.  If the trees  were given a face, then it follows that those who gave their faces, became faceless.

The kindly man points out that it is the Stranger who has many faces and many ears to hear.  Which is rather interesting; since that would make the Stranger, Him of Many Faces.

[Darry Man]

1 hour ago, LynnS said:

There are similarities between the God's Eye where every tree was given a face and the HoB&W with it's hall of faces.  The Isle of the Gods is just another name for the location of the HoB&W.  It's a major temple with it's own Isle.  It houses more than one statue of the various gods and people go there to pray.  Not everyone goes there to drink from the black cup.

It's not a symbolic visit but there may be a connection between the God's Eye and the Faceless Men.  If the trees  were given a face, then it follows that those who gave their faces, became faceless.

The kindly man points out that it is the Stranger who has many faces and many ears to hear.  Which is rather interesting; since that would make the Stranger, Him of Many Faces.

I agree with this. There is a strong likelihood that she went to the HoB&W, as there are many similarities with that institution and the God's Eye. It's just not explicit in ASOIAF. Seeing the God's Eye first-hand will be a treat in the coming books.

[LynnS]

3 hours ago, Darry Man said:

I agree with this. There is a strong likelihood that she went to the HoB&W, as there are many similarities with that institution and the God's Eye. It's just not explicit in ASOIAF. Seeing the God's Eye first-hand will be a treat in the coming books.

No it's not explicit.  Does it have to be explicit to recognize that the Isle of Gods is the location of the HoB&W?  We're given the geography and the common name of the place.  If everything was explicit, it wouldn't be interesting.   More to the point, the Sailor's Wife goes there to pray for the return of her dead husband once a month.   Isn't that an odd thing to do? 

[Loren the last]

Well of course to the queen o' whores