Unsolved mysteries. Are Florian and Jonquil GRRM's A King in Yellow?

[Seams]

Will we ever learn the full plot of Florian and Jonquil?

Exploring some links posted by @Ckram on the Secrets of Braavos thread, I was interested to learn the GRRM included a city called Carcosa on the far edge of the detailed maps for ASOIAF. Including this place name is apparently an homage to a classic fantasy short story and a subsequent influential book titled The King in Yellow, by Robert Chambers. Four stories in the Chambers book include references to a play titled The King in Yellow that is never fully described. Some characters quote passages from the play - but only from the first act. Somewhere along the way, the reader is informed that anyone who reads the second act of The King in Yellow will be driven insane.

Apparently a number of contemporary fantasy writers keep up the tradition by referring to this fictitious play or including in their works details that allude to it.

I haven't searched ASOIAF for direct references to the play. Inclusion of Carcosa on the map along with the mapmaker's assurance, “If you see something in those eastern lands you can be sure it’s there for a reason,” lead me to wonder how the classic works might have influenced GRRM.

One thought is that the Florian and Jonquil tale might play a similar role in ASOIAF as The King in Yellow serves in the Chambers book. We know that there is a knight who is also a fool, that there is a love story involving Florian and Jonquil, and that the story is sad. Based on the fragment of a puppet show in The Mystery Knight, there seems to be a scene where a knight beheads a dragon. Do you think the Florian and Jonquil story could be the equivalent of the mysterious play that is never fully revealed and would drive people insane if revealed?

Sansa and Dontos and other characters seem to know the full story, though. It's only the real-world reader who doesn't (yet) know how the story plays out. So maybe that's not a good parallel.

Another thing that hasn't been fully explained is cyvasse. Here again, however, the characters in the book know the game and play it to completion; it's just the reader who is left in the dark about many of the details of gameplay.

Maybe the Doom of Valyria is the best match for The King in Yellow. People don't seem to understand what happened and they give the area a wide berth, years after the peninsula was destroyed. Except for Euron and (we suspect) Gerion Lannister. Have they gone insane?

Are there any other unexplained mysteries in ASOIAF that might qualify as GRRM's The King in Yellow? Melisandre's origins? Benjen's disappearance? Meria Martell's letter to Aegon? (Actually, disrespectful Westeros people referred to Meria as The Yellow Toad of Dorne, so that might be a King in Yellow allusion right there. Toad is probably a pun on the German word, "Tod," meaning death.)

[hiemal]

I think Danys the Dreamer's prophecy, known to most only in fragments, might be the best King in Yellow analog- if, as I suspect, that is what changed Rhaegar, for example, and perhaps drove Aerys II mad?

[StarkofWinterfell]

Perhaps if we're looking for places where we don't know the full picture in the book as analogs to the King in Yellow, we can also include the origins of the White Walkers, where whores go, who is the 3EC, what happened between Ned and Ashara, and more.

Those have certainly driven readers insane over the years.

[Pukisbaisals]

10 hours ago, Seams said:

Meria Martell's letter to Aegon? (Actually, disrespectful Westeros people referred to Meria as The Yellow Toad of Dorne, so that might be a King in Yellow allusion right there. Toad is probably a pun on the German word, "Tod," meaning death.) 

You mean Nymor's letter?

For me the most mysterious book is this one:

Quote

Roose Bolton was seated by the hearth reading from a thick leatherbound book when she entered. "Light some candles," he commanded her as he turned a page. "It grows gloomy in here."

She placed the food at his elbow and did as he bid her, filling the room with flickering light and the scent of cloves. Bolton turned a few more pages with his finger, then closed the book and placed it carefully in the fire. He watched the flames consume it, pale eyes shining with reflected light. The old dry leather went up with a whoosh, and the yellow pages stirred as they burned, as if some ghost were reading them.

 

[Seams]

13 hours ago, hiemal said:

I think Danys the Dreamer's prophecy, known to most only in fragments, might be the best King in Yellow analog- if, as I suspect, that is what changed Rhaegar, for example, and perhaps drove Aerys II mad?

Good one. We know that her prophecy came true, but we don't know the details of what she foresaw or whether the prophecy was revealed in the form of metaphors or other cryptic, coded phrases or images. This goes along with the larger mystery of the doom itself and the lingering bad mojo surrounding Valyria.

8 hours ago, StarkofWinterfell said:

Perhaps if we're looking for places where we don't know the full picture in the book as analogs to the King in Yellow, we can also include the origins of the White Walkers, where whores go, who is the 3EC, what happened between Ned and Ashara, and more.

Those have certainly driven readers insane over the years.

All excellent points! I hope some of those mysteries might be clarified as the last two books unfold, but it wouldn't surprise me if GRRM deliberately withholds some of the information.

8 hours ago, Pukisbaisals said:

You mean Nymor's letter?

For me the most mysterious book is this one:

Roose Bolton was seated by the hearth reading from a thick leatherbound book when she entered. "Light some candles," he commanded her as he turned a page. "It grows gloomy in here."

She placed the food at his elbow and did as he bid her, filling the room with flickering light and the scent of cloves. Bolton turned a few more pages with his finger, then closed the book and placed it carefully in the fire. He watched the flames consume it, pale eyes shining with reflected light. The old dry leather went up with a whoosh, and the yellow pages stirred as they burned, as if some ghost were reading them.

Yes, sorry. I should be more careful. I was conflating Meria and Deria, and the letter came from Nymor (son of Meria, father of Deria). Thanks for pulling me back in.

I know there have been lively threads dedicated to the unnamed book in Roose's fire and I admit that it may be particularly significant to this thread that GRRM describes the pages as yellow. Maybe Roose's apparent sociopathic qualities derive from reading the forbidden book! Putting the book in the fire, though, might undermine the idea of the sociopath - he seems to be taking care that no one else is exposed to the dangerous contents. Or maybe he feels he has gained something from reading it, and he doesn't want anyone else to absorb its teachings? But he is defeated by the "ghost" reading the pages as they burn.

My longstanding position has been that the contents of this book don't matter, that it is the act of burning it that GRRM wants us to witness. But it might actually be a really good fit for this notion of a parallel "King in Yellow" text or story hidden within ASOIAF. Roose doesn't seem to have the usual motives for playing the game of thrones. Maybe this book is a way of telling the reader that there are unexplained, irrational and mysterious things in the world, Roose's larger motives been among them.

I had another thought about an unexplained mystery that might be the ASOIAF "King in Yellow":

On 4/8/2018 at 3:49 PM, Seams said:

After leaving Raventree Hall, Jaime decides to stay the night at Pennytree with his escort and his Blackwood hostage, Hoster. The people of the town hide in the holdfast and refuse to come out. Jaime contemplates the old oak with hundreds of old copper pennies nailed to its trunk. He expects he could ask the Blackwood boy to explain the story of the oak, but decides "that would spoil the mystery," so he doesn't ask.

 

[Pukisbaisals]

19 hours ago, Seams said:

I know there have been lively threads dedicated to the unnamed book in Roose's fire and I admit that it may be particularly significant to this thread that GRRM describes the pages as yellow. Maybe Roose's apparent sociopathic qualities derive from reading the forbidden book! Putting the book in the fire, though, might undermine the idea of the sociopath - he seems to be taking care that no one else is exposed to the dangerous contents. Or maybe he feels he has gained something from reading it, and he doesn't want anyone else to absorb its teachings? But he is defeated by the "ghost" reading the pages as they burn.

My longstanding position has been that the contents of this book don't matter, that it is the act of burning it that GRRM wants us to witness. But it might actually be a really good fit for this notion of a parallel "King in Yellow" text or story hidden within ASOIAF. Roose doesn't seem to have the usual motives for playing the game of thrones. Maybe this book is a way of telling the reader that there are unexplained, irrational and mysterious things in the world, Roose's larger motives been among them.

I noticed that Roose handled the book with some care, maybe respect. That was a little bit unexpected from such cold and creepy person as Roose. They share some secret, him and the Book.