Jump to content

Out of Context Quotes


JaneSnow

Recommended Posts

11 hours ago, Lollygag said:

I think shit and piss actually deserve a through examination. Can’t imagine why that’s not happened yet!

I suspect old traditions one hasn’t been able to move past for some reason are portrayed as shit and piss sometimes when those traditions are things one would wish to move on and not stick around. As such, the weirwood being a container of the past might be likened to a privy, especially if that past isn’t so pleasant and not as gone as one would wish.

Think of a Port-a-Potty at festival times. :ack::shocked::wacko:

I think there is a "The Piss that was Promised" thread somewhere in the archives. People have definitely been discussing this.

The privy shafts almost certainly connect to a "Chutes and Ladders" metaphor that was discussed in another thread. One of the many games that GRRM incorporated in the symbolism for the Game of Thrones. In some countries, the game is known as "Snakes and Ladders," and he acknowledges that by including the serpentine necks of dragons and serpentine steps in the game.

If privy shafts are chutes, I suspect that weirwood trees are ladders - we see Will in the prologue, Bran (via Summer) and Arya and Wex Pyke climbing trees or trying to climb trees at various points. Dany tries to grow trees. Sansa finds no tree at the Eyrie.

And it's just a short hop from ladder to bladder . . .

There could also be wordplay around step and sept and septic system . . .

Link to comment
Share on other sites

10 minutes ago, Seams said:

I think there is a "The Piss that was Promised" thread somewhere in the archives. People have definitely been discussing this.

The privy shafts almost certainly connect to a "Chutes and Ladders" metaphor that was discussed in another thread. One of the many games that GRRM incorporated in the symbolism for the Game of Thrones. In some countries, the game is known as "Snakes and Ladders," and he acknowledges that by including the serpentine necks of dragons and serpentine steps in the game.

If privy shafts are chutes, I suspect that weirwood trees are ladders - we see Will in the prologue, Bran (via Summer) and Arya and Wex Pyke climbing trees or trying to climb trees at various points. Dany tries to grow trees. Sansa finds no tree at the Eyrie.

And it's just a short hop from ladder to bladder . . .

There could also be wordplay around step and sept and septic system . . .

The enemies of Aeron (the true Piss that was Promised) deleted the thread from Westeros, but you can still find copies in reddit.

Quote

The Drowned God gives every man a gift, even him; no man could pisslonger or farther than Aeron Greyjoy, as he proved at every feast. Once he bet his new longship against a herd of goats that he could quench a hearthfire with no more than his cock

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

14 hours ago, Lollygag said:

I think shit and piss actually deserve a through examination. Can’t imagine why that’s not happened yet!

@Pain killer Jane and I have been pioneers, endeavouring for some time to engage the fandom in shitty discourse -- but LmL persists in censoring our efforts, in favor of more savory topics, LOL! It has become a running joke on twitter...

It's sometimes uncomfortable for fans to acknowledge how GRRM's work does not always make for pleasant, nor especially 'politically correct' reading, a case in point being his obsession with excrement and his treatment of prostitution. People on twitter have even been cowed into using the politically correct term 'sex worker', to avoid a dissection of GRRM's explicit use of the term 'whore' -- which poetically has been linked to 'hoar', with implications for the Long Night, as @Darry Man has shown. See his excellent thread, showcasing his original idea, 'Where Whores Go':

Quote

I suspect old traditions one hasn’t been able to move past for some reason are portrayed as shit and piss sometimes when those traditions are things one would wish to move on and not stick around. As such, the weirwood being a container of the past might be likened to a privy, especially if that past isn’t so pleasant and not as gone as one would wish.

Think of a Port-a-Potty at festival times. :ack::shocked::wacko:

I love your explanation, Lolly!  The weirwood remembers. It is the rejected, yet indelible, Shadow of the collective unconscious, as described by Jung. GRRM is alluding to this idea, e.g. in the choice of the name "Riverrun", which, as @Daendrew followed by @sweetsunray have highlighted, is a reference to the first word of James Joyce's classic 'Finnegans Wake', linking up with the last sentence of the novel, to give:

a way a lone a last a loved a long the / riverrun, past Eve and Adam’s, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs.

I won't parse the whole passage, suffice to note that among the many layered meanings of 'commodious', a commode is a toilet, and 'commodious recirculation' is therefore a description of the polluted river as a sewer system -- with the ultimate message being that the vicious cycle of history has much in common with a cess pool, in which we all float like turds, carried by the current.

Think of the sludgy brown mudflats fed by the river at the Quiet Isle, which receives, and regurgitates all things, corpses and gems alike (Seams' buries/rubies wordplay applies).  Not coincidentally, the Azor Ahai trickster, naughty greenseer figure, Tyrion is Master of Sewers, served with ingeniously unblocking the 'bowels' of Casterly Rock. Make of that what you will.

GRRM is also making a comment on how humans frequently treat other human beings like shit. He is a cynical romantic -- like Jaime.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, ravenous reader said:

@Pain killer Jane and I have been pioneers, endeavouring for some time to engage the fandom in shitty discourse -- but LmL persists in censoring our efforts, in favor of more savory topics, LOL! It has become a running joke on twitter...

Fight on, I say! :commie:

I'll be continuing my response here for lack of a better place a bit later today - have real world stuff to get to now. Thanks for making the connection to rivers and I've never thought to connect the Quiet Isle to it. I've been wondering about that. Anyhow, this thread goes into the shit/piss/old ways/human sacrifice/Lannister/Shrouded Lord-Rhoyne connection. Apologies I don't have a concise post to link you to. A lot of the ideas were gardened out and developed with a lot of help from others. Trying to not derail further...

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...
13 hours ago, Jaehaerys Tyrell said:
Quote

"You'll have to work at it every day." He put the sword in her hands, showed her how to hold it, and stepped back. "How does it feel? Do you like the balance?"

 

"You don't want to wake the dragon, do you?"

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...