Euron Greyjoy and his Obsession with Mutes????

[The Mother of The Others]

2 hours ago, Ghost+Nymeria4Eva said:

He does it because the ship's crew can't tell anyone what happens on the ship.

That's what i'm saying.   If we're going for the simple straight-forward example, the crew now won't be talking about how he had them park the ship right close to pike (?) castle one night so he could scale the walls and kill the king of the iron islands while in transit to and fro the toilet turret.  That sort of thing.  But also weird voodoo shit.   

The dusky, i believe, is there to make sure Vic obligates himself down the human sacrifice path to hell, by just being there as an obvious choice for whom to use, or by trickery like offing herself and smearing the horn with blood.  The ryme of the ancient mariner comes to mind.  Euron seems to control the winds, and could calm the seas until temptation mounts to use the blood magic.

 

[Stormking902]

Another reason besides keeping the crew silent, it also insures your crew stick with you. The silence apparently has been traveling to very dangerous places including Assai which NO crew would wanna go when there are other jobs they could be doing, removing there tongue guarentees they stick around because they can't really do much else. 

[Josette DuPres]

It's easier to manipulate people with limited options, aka Bran.  Want someone to do something they would rather not, cripple them, take away their options.  Like Bran.  Take away an ability and the remaining abilities get stronger.  You take their power of speech and maybe they become better listeners.  

[Shi Qiang]

1 hour ago, House Beaudreau said:

Yeah on the surface is makes sense to cut out the tongues to cut down on the sailers gossip but how can a crew of mutes successfully sail a ship without vocal communication. Vocal commands are a big part of sailing. Also if he is cutting out there tongues why are they sticking with him? Why not just knife him while he sleeps, or throw him into the sea? The cruelty factor doesn't make sense unless he has some sort of control over them? 

 

Perhaps George Martin is not a sailor.  Why they continue to serve him is a good question.  Maybe he promised them plunder, wealth.

 

[Ghost+Nymeria4Eva]

2 hours ago, House Beaudreau said:

Yeah on the surface is makes sense to cut out the tongues to cut down on the sailers gossip but how can a crew of mutes successfully sail a ship without vocal communication. Vocal commands are a big part of sailing. Also if he is cutting out there tongues why are they sticking with him? Why not just knife him while he sleeps, or throw him into the sea? The cruelty factor doesn't make sense unless he has some sort of control over them? 

 

I guess they use hand gestures now. Are vocal commands between familiar crew necessary for sailing? Soldiers do hand gestures. Also, a highly experienced crew probably already know what they are supposed to do and what everyone else is doing as well, like a well trained and oiled machine. That's my guess. 

The mutilation most likely makes them unsuitable for other jobs. With a new crew, vocal commands will be necessary, as you said. How are they going to even say they want a new job or what they can do when they are mute? These people are not literate. 

I guess the crew's attitude is like better the devil you know with Euron. Even though Euron is cruel, the plunder is good. They go to crazy places and steal as they like. It's the medieval equivalent of a well paid job. Plus, I think they already know that there's no way to get away from Euron. It's like being in the mafia, the only way out is death. It's also like being in a family, where everyone else is mute just like you. 

Euron could also be drugging them. In the sample TWOW chapter for Aeron the damphir, he's fed nightshade. 

[chrisdaw]

9 hours ago, zandru said:

Thistle was trying to commit suicide. She had no ability to get at a knife to stab herself to death; all she had was her teeth, and a severed tongue would bleed profusely. That's why the stump is normally cauterized when a tongue is cut out, unless it's part of an execution.

We don't bite our own tongues all the time because our brain's control our jaw and tongue subconsciously so that they work in tandem and it doesn't happen. Two brains working in the one person, two sets of subconscious commands in contradiction with each other, and tongues get bitten off.

[zandru]

3 hours ago, chrisdaw said:

Two brains working in the one person, two sets of subconscious commands in contradiction with each other, and tongues get bitten off.

Possible, but Thistle gave every indication of trying to escape Varamyr "by any means necessary", including death. I don't think she bit her tongue completely off by a random uncoordinated spasm. That's some pretty tough flesh. (Personal experience.)

[chrisdaw]

53 minutes ago, zandru said:

Possible, but Thistle gave every indication of trying to escape Varamyr "by any means necessary", including death. I don't think she bit her tongue completely off by a random uncoordinated spasm. That's some pretty tough flesh. (Personal experience.)

Quote

"Get out, get out!" he heard her own mouth shouting. Her body staggered, fell, and rose again, her hands flailed, her legs jerked this way and that in some grotesque dance as his spirit and her own fought for the flesh. She sucked down a mouthful of the frigid air, and Varamyr had half a heartbeat to glory in the taste of it and the strength of this young body before her teeth snapped together and filled his mouth with blood. She raised her hands to his face. He tried to push them down again, but the hands would not obey, and she was clawing at his eyes.

 

The tongue tastes, Varamyr glories in the taste, his tongue, she snaps the teeth, her jaw.

Putting things together paints a scenario where everything lines up. Varamyr is an asshole, a rapist, a monster essentially. He is trying to do something horrid, unnatural, abominable. The process results in the excruciating pain of one's tongue being bitten off.

Euron is morally worse than Varamyr, he is the most depraved evil character yet. He is the pinnacle of sick and twisted that this series is going to offer, he isn't just bad, he is spectacularly so, a giant dreamer and achiever in evil that makes Varamyr in comparison seem an ant. He just so happens to cut the tongues of his underlings out.

Simplest explanation here, Euron skinchanges his underlings, and cuts their tongues out before hand because if he doesn't then often times it ends up being bitten off in the process. And that fucking hurts, which is reason enough, but also perhaps it hurts so it might even cause him to retreat from their body and the process to fail, as sort of happened with Varamyr.

[Bowen 747]

On 3/16/2018 at 7:20 PM, 867-5309 said:

Silence is golden.  Euron likes to hear himself talk.  He doesn't want to hear another voice.  Perhaps he doesn't want someone to use a spell against him.  The spell must be spoken to have power.  Having the only voice on board gives him the only power to use spells.

Cast a spell.  They can't speak, they can't cast spells.  He has warlocks on his crew.  Taking away their tongues rob them of their magic.  Because this is the Song of Ice and Fire, songs have power.  They can't sing without their tongue.  

[Yet Another ASOIAF Fan]

3 hours ago, Bowen 747 said:

Cast a spell.  They can't speak, they can't cast spells.  He has warlocks on his crew.  Taking away their tongues rob them of their magic.  Because this is the Song of Ice and Fire, songs have power.  They can't sing without their tongue.  

Sorry to go off topic, but have songs ever been shown to have power?  On topic, it maybe be as simple as loose lips sink ships.

[Ckram]

I have always found it odd that a crew of people whose tongues were pulled out by the captain never ripped out the captain's tongue or killed him while he was sleeping.

[Fire Eater]

Quote

"A certain Lysene pirate once told me that a good smuggler stays out of sight," Davos replied carefully. "Black sails, muffled oars, and a crew that knows how to hold their tongues."
The Lyseni laughed. "A crew with no tongues is even better. Big strong mutes who cannot read or write." 

-ASoS Davos V

Euron wants a crew of mutes since mutes can't give away your secrets.

[The Mother of The Others]

And what makes it so realistic is Martin won't tell us those secrets as if the Silence's news blackout includes him.  Which implies he really does rely on hearing the characters speak to him to tell this story, and this crew is mum.

[Lady Blizzardborn]

When you cut out a man's tongue, you are telling the world you fear what he will say. Or something like that.

Euron likes mutes because they can't spill his secrets. They also can't talk back, which is a big plus since he hates being questioned even a tiny bit (see Lord Rodrik "The Reader" Harlaw).

[Here's Looking At You, Kid]

21 hours ago, Bowen 747 said:

Cast a spell.  They can't speak, they can't cast spells.  He has warlocks on his crew.  Taking away their tongues rob them of their magic.  Because this is the Song of Ice and Fire, songs have power.  They can't sing without their tongue.  

 

17 hours ago, Yet Another ASOIAF Fan said:

Sorry to go off topic, but have songs ever been shown to have power?  On topic, it maybe be as simple as loose lips sink ships.

 

8 hours ago, Ckram said:

I have always found it odd that a crew of people whose tongues were pulled out by the captain never ripped out the captain's tongue or killed him while he was sleeping.

I don't know about songs but they can't speak a curse without their tongues.  And they can't spill the beans on his plans.  

Maybe they just need encouragement to rebel like the people of Volantis.  

[Ckram]

@Here's Looking At You, Kid

Maybe. But keep in mind that they are not similar situations.

In Volantis, there's the Triarchy and other slavemaster to persecute rebel slaves who killed their master (the same way Westerosi Lords deals Night's Watch's deserters).

At sea, where the captain is king, the "throne" can be easily usurped and the "kingdom" can dock where slaves could be out of reach of retaliators (places like Braavos, I mean).

@Fire Eater

Nice catch.

[The Mother of The Others]

Uhhhh, continuing to spin away on this one as if there's something we can puzzle out here for reals.....

Isn't it sort of contradictory that you'd grab warlocks after your tussle with them and then keep them around but in a powerless state so they can't hurt you with curses but they also can't help your cause by throwing curses at your foes?   That leaves only a dominance display over a beaten foe..... but why drag that on and on, as they consume rations that could go to your crew?  Why aren't the warlocks all dead in other words? (Or are they?  I forget).

...... could it be that things are not what they seem on the boat and the warlocks are still large and in charge , whole, unmaimed, but hidden behind a glamour of beaten- down- ish-ness or the illusion they were killed (whichever happened, i forgot).  So that Euron seems to run the show when any outsiders are present, but once they're at sea the warlocks emerge from the illusion and call the shots, with Euron drugged on nightshade and heavily suggestible toward their cause with a bit of nudging.   And then the crew sees all this but are unable to communicate it to anyone for help.   

Euron seems totally masterful over his own path though in his chapters (con gusto!), so that'd be the counter argument.  It's probably best to keep him an independent nutbar that even the nightshade users can't rein in, so that he uses their drink to steal its benefits without signing on to the official warlock agenda.  So he's a broken arrow (a live grenade) from Everyone's perspective. 

Still, a glamour would have neatly justified everyone's tongue-less-ness-ity.  Eh.

[Lucius Lovejoy]

On 3/16/2018 at 6:20 PM, 867-5309 said:

Silence is golden.  Euron likes to hear himself talk.  He doesn't want to hear another voice.  Perhaps he doesn't want someone to use a spell against him.  The spell must be spoken to have power.  Having the only voice on board gives him the only power to use spells.

Great post and fantastic alias.

I'm of the opinion that Euron is just a psychopath but relatively weak and without magical power.  He wants to be a god, but the best he can do is become king of the iron islands?  The iron islands suck, Euron is a nobody, and he is going to get crushed sooner rather than later, probably by Daenerys.

[Haus Berlin]

I agree, Euron wants to be god. A sea god. His kingdom seems like a cruel inversion of Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Mermaid to me.

[Varysblackfyre321]

On March 19, 2018 at 11:20 AM, The Mother of The Others said:

Uhhhh, continuing to spin away on this one as if there's something we can puzzle out here for reals.....

Isn't it sort of contradictory that you'd grab warlocks after your tussle with them and then keep them around but in a powerless state so they can't hurt you with curses but they also can't help your cause by throwing curses at your foes?   That leaves only a dominance display over a beaten foe..... but why drag that on and on, as they consume rations that could go to your crew?  Why aren't the warlocks all dead in other words? (Or are they?  I forget).

...... could it be that things are not what they seem on the boat and the warlocks are still large and in charge , whole, unmaimed, but hidden behind a glamour of beaten- down- ish-ness or the illusion they were killed (whichever happened, i forgot).  So that Euron seems to run the show when any outsiders are present, but once they're at sea the warlocks emerge from the illusion and call the shots, with Euron drugged on nightshade and heavily suggestible toward their cause with a bit of nudging.   And then the crew sees all this but are unable to communicate it to anyone for help.   

Euron seems totally masterful over his own path though in his chapters (con gusto!), so that'd be the counter argument.  It's probably best to keep him an independent nutbar that even the nightshade users can't rein in, so that he uses their drink to steal its benefits without signing on to the official warlock agenda.  So he's a broken arrow (a live grenade) from Everyone's perspective. 

Still, a glamour would have neatly justified everyone's tongue-less-ness-ity.  Eh.

Perhaps the warlocks aren't even that-they may very well be just mutes or guys Euron has pretending to be to add to his allure.