Wow, I never noticed that v.17

[Corvo the Crow]

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The girl smiled in a way that reminded Jon so much of his little sister that it almost broke his heart. "Let him be scared of me." The snowflakes were melting on her cheeks, but her hair was wrapped in a swirl of lace that Satin had found somewhere, and the snow had begun to collect there, giving her a frosty crown. Her cheeks were flushed and red, and her eyes sparkled.

"Winter's lady." Jon squeezed her hand.

 

Karstark heraldic device is a white sunburst on a black field, like a white sun rising through a dark night. Their words are “The sun of winter.” A pun on of them being sons of the King’s of Winter(fell). 

 

Below is Jon and a wight

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Jon's breath went out of him as the fallen table caught him between his shoulder blades. The sword, where was the sword? He'd lost the damned sword! When he opened his mouth to scream, the wight jammed its black corpse fingers into Jon's mouth. Gagging, he tried to shove it off, but the dead man was too heavy. Its hand forced itself farther down his throat, icy cold, choking him. Its face was against his own, filling the world. Frost covered its eyes, sparkling blue. Jon raked cold flesh with his nails and kicked at the thing's legs. He tried to bite, tried to punch, tried to breathe …

 

And also Night’s King and his queen

 

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Night's King. Hehad been the thirteenth man to lead the Night's Watch, she said; a warrior who knew no fear. "And that was the fault in him," she would add, "for all men must know fear." A woman was his downfall; a woman glimpsed from atop the Wall, with skin as white as the moon and eyes like blue stars. Fearing nothing, he chased her and caught her and loved her, though her skin was cold as ice, and when he gave his seed to her he gavehis soul as well.

 

Now, what does Alys being the Winter’s lady mean?

[Seams]

2 hours ago, Corvo the Crow said:

Now, what does Alys being the Winter’s lady mean?

I just wrote about Alys as, possibly, the personification of winter or snow. It may be a Karstark family trait, though.

There is a lot of Night's King imagery in the chapter where Jon reacts to the pink letter. Alys may be a symbolic Night's Queen.

[Corvo the Crow]

On 3/24/2019 at 2:08 AM, Seams said:

I just wrote about Alys as, possibly, the personification of winter or snow. It may be a Karstark family trait, though.

There is a lot of Night's King imagery in the chapter where Jon reacts to the pink letter. Alys may be a symbolic Night's Queen.

Does that make Jon the NK? It’s not him who marries her but he was the one who saw her(with Melisandre as his eyes) after all and when first seen, just like Night’s King’s corpse queen she looks half dead.

[Seams]

On 3/25/2019 at 4:09 AM, Corvo the Crow said:

Does that make Jon the NK? It’s not him who marries her but he was the one who saw her(with Melisandre as his eyes) after all and when first seen, just like Night’s King’s corpse queen she looks half dead.

I think this is another case where GRRM is playing with the notion of the unreliable narrator. Except, in this case, he is telling us that the myths and legends can't be interpreted literally and applied to contemporary characters. We see Stannis and Selyse, Ramsay and fArya / Jeyne, Jon and Val, Jon and Alys, Mance and Dalla, Sam and Gilly - any number of couples who embody a small or large part of the story. (Edit: I always suspected there is some kind of symbolism contained in the "winter" and "ice" anagrams contained within the names "Tywin + Cersei." If Cersei is a winter / ice queen, then Jaime would be the one who gave her his seed. So the parallels can be unexpected and somewhat removed from the northern setting of the original legend.)

The way we heard the tale of the Night's King, we assumed he was a failed Lord Commander who broke his vows, became a tyrant and had to be attacked by his brother. But then the author gives us all these parallels between Jon and the Night's King EXCEPT

• he didn't marry an ice queen, he arranged her wedding to someone else;
• he is passionate about rescuing Mother Mole and her people, but there is a strategic reason for this (to prevent more ice zombies);
• he didn't plan an attack on the Lord of Winterfell (as did Gendel and Gorne), he was planning to remove a monstrous usurper who (he thought) was torturing his sister and destabilizing the north.
• he didn't really break his vows because Qhorin and Jeor sent him to collude with the wildlings.

So we have to circle back and wonder whether there is more to the story of the original Night's King than we can know. Did he really do the things they claim, or is our understanding based only on the interpretation of history handed down by the Stark brother who defeated him? How do tales change over the centuries and is a version of the truth lost in the process?

[Seams]

More thoughts on Alys. I think her dance comment is a metaphor, and may be the key to her symbolism:

"You could dance with me, you know. It would be only courteous. You danced with me anon."

The word "anon" means "now" so Alys is using it incorrectly to describe something that happened in the past. Why would GRRM put that word in her mouth?

Jon then also uses the word incorrectly, to describe something in the future:

A snowflake danced upon the air. Then another. Dance with me, Jon Snow, he thought. You'll dance with me anon.

My current guess is that GRRM is playing a game with another phrase he uses in the Jon arc:

On and on the wildlings came ...

(Three times in Dance, Chap. 58)

Is the author telling us that Jon has been dancing with Alys on and on for years in the past, and on and on years into the future? A couple of years ago, there was a discussion in this forum about GRRM's use of the phrase "a thousand years ago" as a signal that the story was about to repeat something from an ancient legend or Westeros history. Maybe Jon's "dance" with Alys is the echo of a legend, and has gone on for eons. But what does it mean?

It's interesting that Alys's new husband is called the Magnar of Thenn. Is GRRM playing with time frames again here, creating a character called "then"? This is another ambiguous word that could mean past or future. I suspect Jon is also a "brother" of the Magnar: the Milkwater is the name of the river to which Jon travels beyond the Wall with Qhorin. People who share a wetnurse are called "milk brothers" and Jon's introduction to the free folk at the Milkwater may have created a bond between those people and Jon. In Dance, Chap. 49, Jon thinks at one point, "And this marriage is mine own work, after all." If you left out the word "work," it's pretty close to an admission that Jon just married Alys.

If you indulge me in my wordplay obsession, I think there are two more sound-alike hints about "on and on" that might help us to expand on the symbolism: Wun Wun and onions. The friendly giant's nickname is Wun Wun and onions are important as part of the root symbolism in ASOIAF and because of their connection to Davos Seaworth.

Davos tells us at one point that he smuggled life (in the form of onions) into Storm's End and then smuggled death (in the form of Melisandre) into the same place. If onions symbolize life, then "on and on" might also have something to do with life.

Dance seems like a complex symbol for GRRM: we know there was a civil war called the Dance of the Dragons, and Ser Waymar invites the White Walker to dance with him when he dies in the opening prologue. I may be wrong but I think dance might also symbolize having sex as well as creating an alliance. (Brienne fell in love with Renly when he danced with her at Tarth, Ser Garlan Tyrell dances with Sansa at her wedding feast - both nonsexual alliances.)

I'm not sure how Wun Wun fits into this. I had guessed at one point that giants are symbolic Targaryens. (Maester Aemon says Tyrion is a giant; Ygritte sings to Jon about the last of the giants. In Blood and Fire, we learned that dragons apparently cannot fly across the Wall. In ADwD, we are told that mammoths - the animals associated with giants - cannot pass through the tunnel under the Wall.) Maybe Wun Wun's "awakening" to violence at the end of ADwD represents Jon's inner Targ coming to life.

[Lollygag]

3 minutes ago, Seams said:

I'm not sure how Wun Wun fits into this.

FYI - I just read that Wun Wun's name is a tribute to the New York Giant's quarterback Phil Simms who wore number wun-wun. 

https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nfl/giants/2019/03/14/game-of-thrones-creator-george-r-r-martin-what-are-giants-doing-trading-odell-beckham-jr/3162241002/

I'll be looking out for something referring to Odell Beckham in TWOW. 

[Jô Maltese]

11 hours ago, Seams said:

I think this is another case where GRRM is playing with the notion of the unreliable narrator. Except, in this case, he is telling us that the myths and legends can't be interpreted literally and applied to contemporary characters. We see Stannis and Selyse, Ramsay and fArya / Jeyne, Jon and Val, Jon and Alys, Mance and Dalla, Sam and Gilly - any number of couples who embody a small or large part of the story.

The way we heard the tale of the Night's King, we assumed he was a failed Lord Commander who broke his vows, became a tyrant and had to be attacked by his brother. But then the author gives us all these parallels between Jon and the Night's King EXCEPT

• he didn't marry an ice queen, he arranged her wedding to someone else;
• he is passionate about rescuing Mother Mole and her people, but there is a strategic reason for this (to prevent more ice zombies);
• he didn't plan an attack on the Lord of Winterfell (as did Gendel and Gorne), he was planning to remove a monstrous usurper who (he thought) was torturing his sister and destabilizing the north.
• he didn't really break his vows because Qhorin and Jeor sent him to collude with the wildlings.

So we have to circle back and wonder whether there is more to the story of the original Night's King than we can know. Did he really do the things they claim, or is our understanding based only on the interpretation of history handed down by the Stark brother who defeated him? How do tales change over the centuries and is a version of the truth lost in the process?

 

During my last re-read I became convinced that Coldhands was the Night's King, and a Brandon Stark from long ago.

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The Nightfort had figured in some of Old Nan's scariest stories. It was here that Night's King had reigned, before his name was wiped from the memory of man. This was where the Rat Cook had served the Andal king his prince-and-bacon pie, where the seventy-nine sentinels stood their watch, where brave young Danny Flint had been raped and murdered. This was the castle where King Sherrit had called down his curse on the Andals of old, where the 'prentice boys had faced the thing that came in the night, where blind Symeon Star-Eyes had seen the hellhounds fighting. Mad Axe had once walked these yards and climbed these towers, butchering his brothers in the dark.(...)

There are ghosts here. (...)

Sometimes Summer would hear sounds that Bran seemed deaf to, or bare his teeth at nothing, the fur on the back of his neck bristling... but the Rat Cook never put in an appearance, nor the seventy-nine sentinels, nor Mad Axe. 

A Storm of Swords - Bran IV

The Nighfort was the Night's King seat, who better than him can remember where the Black Gate is? Also note that the NK is not mentioned in the end and CH makes his appearance soon after.

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The gathering gloom put Bran in mind of another of Old Nan's stories, the tale of Night's King. He had been the thirteenth man to lead the Night's Watch, she said; a warrior who knew no fear. "And that was the fault in him," she would add, "for all men must know fear." A woman was his downfall; a woman glimpsed from atop the Wall, with skin as white as the moon and eyes like blue stars. Fearing nothing, he chased her and caught her and loved her, though her skin was cold as ice, and when he gave his seed to her he gave his soul as well.

He brought her back to the Nightfort and proclaimed her a queen and himself her king, and with strange sorceries he bound his Sworn Brothers to his will. For thirteen years they had ruled, Night's King and his corpse queen, till finally the Stark of Winterfell [Brandon the Breaker] and Joramun of the wildlings had joined to free the Watch from bondage. After his fall, when it was found he had been sacrificing to the Others, all records of Night's King had been destroyed, his very name forbidden.

"Some say he was a Bolton," Old Nan would always end. "Some say a Magnar out of Skagos, some say Umber, Flint, or Norrey. Some would have you think he was a Woodfoot, from them who ruled Bear Island before the ironmen came. He never was. He was a Stark, the brother of the man who brought him down." She always pinched Bran on the nose then, he would never forget it. "He was a Stark of Winterfell, and who can say? Mayhaps his name was Brandon. Mayhaps he slept in this very bed in this very room."

A Storm of Swords - Bran IV

 

He hides his face, and will not speak a name. (...)

Men of the Night's Watch. "You killed them. You and the ravens. Their faces were all torn, and their eyes were gone." Coldhands did not deny it. "They were your brothers. I saw. The wolves had ripped their clothes up, but I could still tell. Their cloaks were black. Like your hands." Coldhands said nothing. "Who are you? (...) 

"Show us your face." (...)

"A monster," Bran said.

The ranger looked at Bran as if the rest of them did not exist. "Your monster, Brandon Stark."

A Dance with Dragons - Bran I

 

Then, as he watched, a bearded man forced a captive down onto his knees before the heart tree. A white-haired woman stepped toward them through a drift of dark red leaves, a bronze sickle in her hand.

"No," said Bran, "no, don't," but they could not hear him, no more than his father had. The woman grabbed the captive by the hair, hooked the sickle round his throat, and slashed. And through the mist of centuries the broken boy could only watch as the man's feet drummed against the earth … but as his life flowed out of him in a red tide, Brandon Stark could taste the blood.

A Dance with Dragons - Bran III

All this very much fits with CH, especially if you believe that the Horn of Joramum is the broken one Jon found by the Fist. And I think Joranum was a white-haired woman... The broken bondage could also explain why CH cannot use the secret gate. And the NK was a Stark, mayhaps a Brandon Stark... Who introduced himself to Bran and whom he could taste the blood when flying in the past.

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Beneath the trees, a man muffled head to heels in mottled blacks and greys sat astride an elk. "Here," the rider called. A hood shadowed his face.

A Storm of Swords - Samwell III

 

There were trees growing where the stables had been, and a twisted white weirwood pushing up through the gaping hole in the roof of the domed kitchen. (...)

The Reeds decided that they would sleep in the kitchens, a stone octagon with a broken dome. It looked to offer better shelter than most of the other buildings, even though a crooked weirwood had burst up through the slate floor beside the huge central well, stretching slantwise toward the hole in the roof, its bone-white branches reaching for the sun. It was a queer kind of tree, skinnier than any other weirwood that Bran had ever seen and faceless as well, but it made him feel as if the old gods were with him here, at least.(...)

You could feel the cold seeping up through the slate floor. Bran did not like the shadows either, or the huge brick ovens that surrounded them like open mouths, or the rusted meat hooks, or the scars and stains he saw in the butcher's block along one wall. 

A Storm of Swords - Bran IV

 

The direwolf did not like the way that Coldhands smelled. Dead meat, dry blood, a faint whiff of rot. And cold. Cold over all.(...)

The ranger killed a pig. [we know it was not a pig...] (...)

His voice rattled in his throat, as thin and gaunt as he was. "His hands and feet swell up and turn as black as pudding. The rest of him becomes as white as milk." (...)

A Dance with Dragons - Bran I

The description of the domed (doomed?) kitchen reminds me of CH... And ends with the well, which we know will lead to CH.

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Outside the wind was sending armies of dead leaves marching across the courtyards to scratch faintly at the doors and windows. The sounds made him think of Old Nan's stories. He could almost hear the ghostly sentinels calling to each other atop the Wall and winding their ghostly warhorns. Pale moonlight slanted down through the hole in the dome, painting the branches of the weirwood as they strained up toward the roof. It looked as if the tree was trying to catch the moon and drag it down into the well. Old gods, Bran prayed, if you hear me, don't send a dream tonight. Or if you do, make it a good dream. The gods made no answer.

A Storm of Swords - Bran IV

The NK and his army of the dead are coming! And CH too...

 

[Rose of Red Lake]

"Toland" literally means "to land." Where the First Men landed in Westeros, through the land bridge? 

[Corvo the Crow]

Not something great, rather something very sad... gods how I didn’t notice it before! Old Nan...

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She was a very ugly old woman, Bran thought spitefully; shrunken and wrinkled, almost blind, too weak to climb stairs, with only a few wisps of white hair left to cover a mottled pink scalp. No one really knew how old she was, but his father said she'd been called Old Nan even when he was a boy. She was the oldest person in Winterfell for certain, maybe the oldest person in the Seven Kingdoms. Nan had come to the castle as a wet nurse for a Brandon Stark whose mother had died birthing him. He had been an older brother of Lord Rickard, Bran's grandfather, or perhaps a younger brother, or a brother to Lord Rickard's father. Sometimes Old Nan told it one way and sometimes another. In all the stories the little boy died at three of a summer chill, but Old Nan stayed on at Winterfell with her own children. She had lost both her sons to the war when King Robert won the throne, and her grandson was killed on the walls of Pyke during Balon Greyjoy's rebellion. Her daughters had long ago married and moved away and died. All that was left of her own blood was Hodor, the simpleminded giant who worked in the stables, but Old Nan just lived on and on, doing her needlework and telling her stories.

 

 

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Theon could feel the blood rushing to his face. He took no joy from those heads, no more than he had in displaying the headless bodies of the children before the castle. Old Nan stood with her soft toothless mouth opening and closing soundlessly, and Farlen threw himself at Theon, snarling like one of his hounds. Urzen and Cadwyl had to beat him senseless with the butts of their spears. 

 

She has lived past her children and grandchildren, she lost both her sons and a grandson to war, has seen her daughters wed away and die, has seen one of the kids she gave care to, Rickard, grow up  and get murdered along with his firstborn, to whom she was also nan to, has seen his daughter die and his second son die and now this, she saw the last two little boys to be given to her care, brutally murdered and mutilated. 

Even writing this brought tears to my eyes. Old Nan is by far the saddest character in the series, having witnessed so many loved ones die, losing them generation after generation. I just wish her to survive long enough to see Rickon brought back and learn that Brandon survived.

[kissdbyfire]

6 minutes ago, Corvo the Crow said:

Not something great, rather something very sad... gods how I didn’t notice it before! Old Nan...

 

 

She has lived past her children and grandchildren, she lost both her sons and a grandson to war, has seen her daughters wed away and die, has seen one of the kids she gave care to, Rickard, grow up  and get murdered along with his firstborn, to whom she was also nan to, has seen his daughter die and his second son die and now this, she saw the last two little boys to be given to her care, brutally murdered and mutilated. 

Even writing this brought tears to my eyes. Old Nan is by far the saddest character in the series, having witnessed so many loved ones die, losing them generation after generation. I just wish her to survive long enough to see Rickon brought back and learn that Brandon survived.

That is so incredibly sad... I teared up reading your post.  

And now she’s in some dungeon at the Dreadfort. 

[St Daga]

On 3/23/2019 at 9:30 AM, Seams said:

In our world, garnets are not always red. Jade is not always green. The Internet tells me that onyx is usually black but it can be layered black and white. I don't know whether GRRM uses that ambiguity when he inserts these gems and stones into the series, or whether he is going with the commonly-accepted jade = green and garnets = red. My point being that we may not be able to entirely rely on color analysis to understand the meaning of garnets or of sphinxes.

If the jade is green, however, the jade and black marble color combination seems like a strong allusion to the civil war known as the Dance of the Dragons, with one team known as the Greens (the Queen's Party, Alicent Hightower, backing Aegon II) and the other known as the Blacks (the party of the princess, Rhaenyra Targaryen, who actually wore a red and black dress at the critical feast before the King's Landing tournament. So red and black would be a second color combination to help us pin down a connection).

I suppose GRRM could throw a curve ball and use different colors for garnet and jade, but I think it is safe to think of them as dark red and green for the purpose of your color theory. What I found about the word garnet is that it is based on an middle english word that means "dark red" and also from the Latin word granutus which is derived from granum, meaning grain or seed. So, a dark red seed, which really makes me think of pomegranates. Pomegranates remind me of Bowen Marsh, but they also play a role in Dany's and Sansa's storyline, and it does hint a bit about the myth of Hades and Persephone.

As to jade being a color of green, and it is mentioned much more often in ASOIAF than garnets are, which maybe make it more difficult to make clear connections. We see it connected in the story to the fire of Stannis' lightbringer, the sphinxes in Oldtown which you mentioned, Renly's armor and Renly's crown after his marriage to Maraery Tyrell, Dany's crown that she was gifted by the Tourmaline Brotherhood, Rhaegal's wings and the color of wildfire, but by far the most uses seem to connect to the Jade Sea. The Jade Sea is far to the east and border the shadowlands and Asshai. I find that connection of jade to the Jade Sea and mystical Asshai to be quite interesting.

 

On 3/23/2019 at 9:30 AM, Seams said:

Targaryens are associated with the Red Keep, and there we see a pair of black sphinxes. If all black sphinxes have garnet eyes, and black sphinxes are associated with the party of the Princess / Targaryens, this could strengthen the notion that garnets are linked to Targaryens.

I can see the connection to Valyria, but not to Targaryen's specifically, except that the Red Keep is red in color. Now, I could be wrong but I always thought the Targaryen's made their castle red because of the red dragon on their sigil, which oddly doesn't fit any of the dragons that Aegon or his sister wives rode and used to conquer Westeros. So, the red dragon must mean something else to the Targaryen's.

 

On 3/23/2019 at 9:30 AM, Seams said:

The idea didn't originate with me but, based on a fairly close literary reading of the books, I agree with the idea that Tyrion is a chimera, with Tywin and King Aerys both contributing DNA to fertilize eggs from Joanna that joined to make one baby. He has different-colored eyes and even two-tone hair. The chimera idea would fit with the suggestion that he is a "sphinx" - made up of parts of different animals. In Tyrion's case, the animals would be lion and dragon ( = serpent). The loss of Tyrion's nose strengthens the comparison as the famous sphinx in the Valley of the Kings in Egypt had its nose shot off by soldiers in Napoleon's army.

So what color of sphinx would Tyrion be? We get a clue at Joffrey's wedding feast, when the singer Galyeon of Cuy (Ser Emmon Cuy was Renly's yellow Rainbow Guard member, fwiw) is singing of "the dark lord . . . black was his hair and black was his soul." Tyrion is bored by the endless song and inserts new lyrics as Galyeon sings:

"The dark lord assembled his legions, they gathered around him like crows. And thirsty for blood they boarded their ships . . . "

". . . and cut off poor Tyrion's nose," Tyrion finished.

(ASoS, Tyrion VIII, Chap. 60)

If the Black team cut off Tyrion's nose, does that make him a Team Green sphinx? All through this Galyeon song, Tyrion is conversing with Ser Garlan Tyrell and his wife, Leonette Fossoway. I think Ser Garlan is a symbolic (not literal) Targaryen (Anagram hint: Garlan Tyrell = Targaryen lll) but the primary Tyrell color is decidedly green and Renly even wore green armor after he married Margaery. We don't know if Leonette is a red apple or green apple Fossoway, but she is part of the fruit and color symbolism, and the presence of Fossoways and apples are often good clues that we are in the present of an ascendant king. So it seems as if Tyrion is pretty clearly green in this scene.

I don't think that necessarily means that Tyrion supports House Hightower, just that he is on a team different from whatever team is associated with Black. Hmm. I'm trying to remember which character wears a lot of black?

But we are told and shown that sphinxes come in male / female pairs. While traveling with Illyrio on the road to Ghoyan Drohe ( = dragon hey ho), Tyrion observes a female sphinx with a dragon body crouched by the side of a road. Illyrio notes that it is missing its "king" although the base for the second sphinx is still in place. (The male sphinx was hauled off to Vaes Dothrak, which seems very similar to the Winterfell crypt where "statues" dwell under imprisoning iron swords, ready for rebirth. The contrasting Dothraki view of rebirth may be represented by the fact that swords are not allowed within the bounds of Vaes Dothrak.) We are not told what color the sphinx is. But the comparison of the lone dragon-bodied "queen" to the widowed Dany seems pretty obvious. (Tyrion's remark of, "A pleasant omen" upon seeing the sphinx might hold a clue about Dany as well. We know that Dany is searching for a lemon tree and Tyrion is searching for Tysha, who is a crofter's daughter, also known as a peasant. The sphinx might be a "peasant lemon," representing a unification of the things sought by both Dany and Tyrion - a chimera, if you will. But I know my anagram obsession is not everyone's idea of a valid clue so feel free to ignore that.)

Yes, I have come across this idea of Tyrion as a chimera, and it certainly would fit the idea of a sphinx. You have laced that all together quite nicely. Of course, it is still a working theory that Tyrion is the blood of House Targaryen, and sometimes if feels so obvious and almost shoved in the readers faces, that I have to doubt it a bit. Of course, if the chimera bit works out, that could be the twist, not just the more obvious connections between Aerys/Joanna/Tyrion. Honestly, I doubt most everything that I thought I once understood about this story. Tyrion and Dany do seem to be on a collision course in Essos!  Just Tyrion's eye color itself lends to the black and green sphinx, and also the Citadel connects to Tyrion's thirst for knowledge, and Dany herself is connected to jade in her crown and black in her dragon (granted he is also red in color).

 

On 3/23/2019 at 9:30 AM, Seams said:

"The dark lord brooded high in his tower," Galyeon began, "in a castle as black as the night."

Here we have another Hightower, associated with black, not green. The Jon Snow connection is stronger, with the reference to Castle Black and the earlier reference to being surrounded by crows. You could make a case that this dark lord is Stannis, however, which seems to be the topmost layer of meaning for a song about the Battle of the Blackwater and the challenge to Joffrey's rule.

Of course, the song is about Stannis on an obvious level, as it was written to flatter Joffrey at his wedding.  I am not sure that I see any connection to Jon Snow. Yes, the crows, but everyone who is at the wall could be seen to be surrounded by crows, including all the wildlings there, Stannis' kings men, Selyse's queens men, and everyone who flocks around Melisandre. Jon does spend some time in Hardin's tower and also some time, not much, in the Lord Commander's Tower, and even gives up the best chambers to Stannis in the Kings' Tower, and at this point, Jon is associated with the rooms that belonged to Donal Noye, behind the armory, in a quite modest setting. Of course, GRRM writes deeply, so this song could have more than one reference. but Castle Black is never noted to be made of black stone, while parts of Dragonstone are noted to be made of black stone, but I guess I am not sure if the whole castle is black or not. There seems to be no question that the Baratheon's have Targaryen blood, and therefore Valyrian blood.

 

On 3/23/2019 at 9:30 AM, Seams said:

So, as with the garnets, GRRM is not going to make easy for us the green / black; Hightower / Targaryen sphinx distinction.

No, he wont make anything easy, and I am not sure he truly wants people to figure much out. I think he want's to shock us in the end, but certainly he will lay clues for us, and there have to be clues and connections in the colors.

I will have to look over the discussion of color theory, but I just haven't had the time, but these are really nice thoughts on the sphinxes that we are presented in the story. Tyrion seems more obvious to me, with the lion and dragon connection and I must say I never had given a thought to his lost nose in connection to the Great Sphinx of Giza.

Interestingly, Dany also has lion imagery, and perhaps the sphinx connection to her makes sense then. That white lion pelt was a gift from Drogo and Dany wraps herself in it on numerous occasions, giving her both dragon and lion imagery. However, our description of a sphinx is associated with hawk/eagle wings, not dragon, and the sphinx in Old Town has a serpents tail. I am not sure how it could all work together but I would agree there are clues to help us try to tie the connections.

 

[Alexis-something-Rose]

17 hours ago, Corvo the Crow said:

Even writing this brought tears to my eyes. Old Nan is by far the saddest character in the series, having witnessed so many loved ones die, losing them generation after generation. I just wish her to survive long enough to see Rickon brought back and learn that Brandon survived.

I know! Old Nan needs to survive this. She just has to. I don't think there's a person who has read about Old Nan who was not reminded of their grandmother in some shape or form.

Honestly, I'd rather she was killed at Winterfell than captured by Ramsay and this is literally the one instance where I'm fine if Old Nan is some glamoured Bloodraven agent come to Winterfell to take care of the Stark children. As long as she can escape the Dreadfort. I don't even care if she grows wing.

[Seams]

41 minutes ago, St Daga said:

Interestingly, Dany also has lion imagery, and perhaps the sphinx connection to her makes sense then. That white lion pelt was a gift from Drogo and Dany wraps herself in it on numerous occasions, giving her both dragon and lion imagery. However, our description of a sphinx is associated with hawk/eagle wings, not dragon, and the sphinx in Old Town has a serpents tail. I am not sure how it could all work together but I would agree there are clues to help us try to tie the connections.

Just to complicate things even further, Dany is surrounded by the harpy symbolism and plot elements - another chimera creature. In ASOIAF, harpies are bat/eagle/scorpion and always female. When Kraznys mo Nakloz accepts the leashed dragon and hands Dany the named weapon (whip) known as the Harpy's Fingers, I think it was a symbolic moment of King Aerys recognizing her as his heir. (Named weapons are usually handed down by father figures to their successors.) Of course, the mysterious Ghiscari opposition in Meereen is known as The Sons of the Harpy and they wage a series of attacks on Dany's allies and the Unsullied. So I'm not sure whether the reader is supposed to compare Dany to the harpy, or to look for contrasts.

And then there are griffins . . .

[Seams]

On 3/26/2019 at 3:54 PM, Corvo the Crow said:

She was a very ugly old woman, Bran thought spitefully; shrunken and wrinkled, almost blind, too weak to climb stairs, with only a few wisps of white hair left to cover a mottled pink scalp. No one really knew how old she was, but his father said she'd been called Old Nan even when he was a boy. She was the oldest person in Winterfell for certain, maybe the oldest person in the Seven Kingdoms. Nan had come to the castle as a wet nurse for a Brandon Stark whose mother had died birthing him. ... All that was left of her own blood was Hodor, the simpleminded giant who worked in the stables, but Old Nan just lived on and on, doing her needlework and telling her stories.

I adore Old Nan as a fascinating character but part of what I like about her is that there is a hidden depth to her. Why does she so enjoy telling horror stories to little children? A reader could envision her anguish and grief in the scene described by the excerpt, but I'm afraid there are details that tie her to a character or characters who do not have the grandmotherly and nurturing qualities we might assign to Old Nan.

Though he was not an old man, only a few wisps of hair remained to him, sprouting above his ears, but those he had grown long as a woman's. ... As the headsman looked at her, his pale colorless eyes seemed to strip the clothes away from her, and then the skin, leaving her soul naked before him. Still silent, he turned and walked away. ... 'He speaks most eloquently with his sword ..."

(AGoT, Sansa I, Chap. 15)

Ser Ilyn Payne makes his living as the King's Justice, killing people with his sword. Old Nan, on the other hand, does a lot of needlework. We know, however, that needlework is a symbol for using a sword because Arya will eventually receive a gift of a sword named Needle from Jon Snow. (Arya will also use the fake name of Nan during part of her time on the run after escaping King's Landing.) With the sword / words wordplay pair, we know that Nan's stories and Ser Ilyn's sword are intended to be compared. Does this mean that Old Nan can kill people with her words?

I highlighted the "wet nurse" part of Nan's background because, in that first Sansa POV cited above, as part of her initial encounter with Ser Ilyn, Sandor Clegane explains to an onlooker that Sansa is hugging a direwolf because, "The Starks use them for wet nurses." The logic here could be that Old Nan was a wet nurse for the Starks; the Starks use direwolves as wet nurses; therefore Old Nan is a direwolf. This is very interesting to me because I had long ago noted that Ser Ilyn is like the silent direwolf Ghost except in service to the Lannisters instead of the Starks. Instead of finding him in the snow, Jaime finds him in a dungeon with a bucket of shit (Jaime famously compared his own sense of honor to a bucket of shit). Further logic might lead to a further conclusion: Old Nan and Ser Ilyn are like direwolves; Old Nan and Ser Ilyn are like each other.

Edit: It occurs to me, Ned beheads the direwolf / wetnurse, Lady, that Sansa is hugging. Ser Ilyn beheads Ned. Then we see Old Nan with Theon contemplating the heads of (she is told) the youngest Stark boys. Like Maester Luwin, she knew the boys well and may notice that the heads on the gate are not really Bran and Rickon's heads. Sorry to say it, but I wonder whether Old Nan will be beheaded at some point?

Notice that GRRM throws in that Ser Ilyn is "not an old man". My wordplay radar tell me this is the author deliberately playing around with old man / Old Nan. He wants us to compare these characters.

Sansa feels Ser Ilyn strip her clothes and then her skin from her. (He notably uses his eyes to do this, which has to be wordplay on eyes / Ice, as he is one of two people who use the sword Ice in ASOIAF.) Don't you know, here is Old Nan in a scene where the miller's boys have been stripped and beheaded:

On 3/26/2019 at 3:54 PM, Corvo the Crow said:

Theon could feel the blood rushing to his face. He took no joy from those heads, no more than he had in displaying the headless bodies of the children before the castle. Old Nan stood with her soft toothless mouth opening and closing soundlessly, and Farlen threw himself at Theon, snarling like one of his hounds. Urzen and Cadwyl had to beat him senseless with the butts of their spears. 

Of course, we find out later that it was Ramsay, who likes to skin people, and not Theon, who killed the boys.

In that first Sansa POV, we had Ser Ilyn and The Hound standing over Sansa and her direwolf, Lady. Here we have Old Nan and Farlen-who-is-like-a-hound looking at fake Bran and fake Rickon.

Old Nan's mouth opening and closing soundlessly in this scene is another Ilyn Payne parallel but it also allows us to make a new connection, much later in the series:

Were those the same words you said when you took your vows?”
“They were. As the lord commander knows.”
“Are you certain that I have not forgotten some? The ones about the king and his laws, and how we must defend every foot of his land and cling to each ruined castle? How does that part go?” Jon waited for an answer. None came. “I am the shield that guards the realms of men. Those are the words. So tell me, my lord—what are these wildlings, if not men?”
Bowen Marsh opened his mouth. No words came out. A flush crept up his neck.”

(AdwD, Jon XI, Chap. 53)

We know that Bowen Marsh is on the verge of killing Jon Snow. Here we see him sharing the wordless open mouth that we saw with Old Nan and that we associate with Ser Ilyn.

More logic? Bowen Marsh, Old Nan and Ser Ilyn are silent; Bowen Marsh and Ser Ilyn kill Starks; therefore Old Nan is a Stark killer.

[St Daga]

On 3/27/2019 at 8:52 AM, Seams said:

Just to complicate things even further, Dany is surrounded by the harpy symbolism and plot elements - another chimera creature. In ASOIAF, harpies are bat/eagle/scorpion and always female. When Kraznys mo Nakloz accepts the leashed dragon and hands Dany the named weapon (whip) known as the Harpy's Fingers, I think it was a symbolic moment of King Aerys recognizing her as his heir. (Named weapons are usually handed down by father figures to their successors.) Of course, the mysterious Ghiscari opposition in Meereen is known as The Sons of the Harpy and they wage a series of attacks on Dany's allies and the Unsullied. So I'm not sure whether the reader is supposed to compare Dany to the harpy, or to look for contrasts.

Interesting thought on the harpy's fingers. But, I can't imagine there is only one such whip. I bet one goes to people when they buy a certain amount of slaves. Interestingly, harpy's fingers is not a proper name, since it is not capitalized in the text. Like tower of joy, it is perhaps a nickname. Something hidden behind something else. 

In what way does Kraznys no Nakloz remind you of Aerys? .It was actually Dany giving a dragon to him that made him a dragon maester, if even if only for a few seconds, although he did give her the power of an army with her deceitful trick! Before this he was merely a slave master, although a very powerful one. And he is an asshat and I feel so sympathy for him, but this is a good example of how deceptive Dany will be in her march to power.

Also, doesn't Dany throw the whip away from her, as if refusing it, but only after she has slyly already used it's power. Although, in this moment of her relishing the ruin that dragon fire makes of Kraznys mo Nakloz, she does seem very much like Mad King Aerys!

I am interested in your thoughts on griffins!

[Seams]

30 minutes ago, St Daga said:

In what way does Kraznys no Nakloz remind you of Aerys?

I am interested in your thoughts on griffins!

This link takes you to a post where I outlined my Kraznys thoughts. Essentially, Missandei = Dany, therefore, Kraznys = Aerys. There is a follow-up post on the second page of that thread that makes a correction and expands on some of the thinking about Kraznys.

I haven't put in much thought about griffins, except that I think there may be wordplay around griffins and fingers. Ironically, Connington is restored as a griffin just as his fingers start to turn to stone.

As I was looking for a different thread, I stumbled across a sphinx discussion from the archives. In case people haven't yet had enough ideas about sphinxes. This has some really interesting insights in the OP:

 

[Corvo the Crow]

@Seams

Great post! I think I may add a few small things that the two share

Quote

"The Others," Old Nan agreed. "Thousands and thousands of years ago, a winter fell that was cold and hard and endless beyond all memory of man. There came a night that lasted a generation, and kings shivered and died in their castles even as the swineherds in their hovels. Women smothered their children rather than see them starve, and cried, and felt their tears freeze on their cheeks." Her voice and her needles fell silent, and she glanced up at Bran with pale, filmy eyes and asked, "So, child. This is the sort of story you like?"

 

Old nan has pale filmy eyes, cataracts perhaps? If so, can we consider her eyes dead?

Now I can’t quote the rest for some reason, but Ser Ilyn’s eyes are describer as grey, pale, dead, deep-sunk and hollow(makes him pass for dead itself,, cold as ice on winter-lakes.

 

As for killing with words, GRRM obviously was inspired by Dune with houses passing down traits and looks for milennia. In the movie, but not the book, there were  devices called weirding modules, which were weapons which allowed the bearer to kill with, well, words.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=U86aorxbBRY

[Corvo the Crow]

Manderly did make Frey pies, but not because of Freys killed Wendel, at least not because of just that.

 

Quote

The other captives had been better treated. Ser Wylis Manderly was amongst them, along with several other highborn northmen taken prisoner by the Mountain That Rides in the fighting at the fords of the Trident. Useful hostages, all worth a goodly ransom. They were ragged, filthy, and shaggy to a man, and some had fresh bruises, cracked teeth, and missing fingers, but their wounds had been washed and bandaged, and none of them had gone hungry. Jaime wondered if they had any inkling what they'd been eating, and decided it was better not to inquire.

None had any defiance left; especially not Ser Wylis, a bushy-faced tub of suet with dull eyes and sallow, sagging jowls. When Jaime told him that he would be escorted to Maidenpool and there put on a ship for White Harbor, Ser Wylis collapsed into a puddle on the floor and sobbed longer and louder than Pia had. It took four men to lift him back onto his feet. Too much roast goat, Jaime reflected. Gods, but I hate this bloody castle. Harrenhal had seen more horror in its three hundred years than Casterly Rock had witnessed in three thousand.

 

 

Quote

Lord Wyman sighed. "I have treated you most shamefully, I know. I had my reasons, but … please, sit and drink, I beg you. Drink to my boy's safe return. Wylis, my eldest son and heir. He is home. That is the welcoming feast you hear. In the Merman's Court they are eating lamprey pie and venison with roasted chestnuts. Wynafryd is dancing with the Frey she is to marry. The other Freys are raising cups of wine to toast our friendship."

 

"Soon I must return to the feast to toast my friends of Frey," Manderly continued. "They watch me, ser. Day and night their eyes are on me, noses sniffing for some whiff of treachery. You saw them, the arrogant Ser Jared and his nephew Rhaegar, that smirking worm who wears a dragon's name. Behind them both stands Symond, clinking coins. That one has bought and paid for several of my servants and two of my knights. One of his wife's handmaids has found her way into the bed of my own fool. If Stannis wonders that my letters say so little, it is because I dare not even trust my maester. Theomore is all head and no heart. You heard him in my hall. Maesters are supposed to put aside old loyalties when they don their chains, but I cannot forget that Theomore was born a Lannister of Lannisport and claims some distant kinship to the Lannisters of Casterly Rock. Foes and false friends are all around me, Lord Davos. They infest my city like roaches, and at night I feel them crawling over me." The fat man's fingers coiled into a fist, and all his chins trembled. "My son Wendel came to the Twins a guest. He ate Lord Walder's bread and salt, and hung his sword upon the wall to feast with friends. And they murdered him. Murdered, I say, and may the Freys choke upon their fables. I drink with Jared, jape with Symond, promise Rhaegar the hand of my own beloved granddaughter … but never think that means I have forgotten. The north remembers, Lord Davos. The north remembers, and the mummer's farce is almost done. My son is home."

 

Also, @Seams, you may find some more interesting word plays on these; Lamprey pies and Frey pies.

Lampreys are jawless fish, somewhat worm-like in appearence, many Freys are chinless and lord Wyman thinks that Rhaegar is a worm. Not to mention that Freys just came with a ship some short time ago. They are fishes out of water, jawless worm fishes that will be made into pies.

Quote

He had hoped to hear Lord Wyman say, And now I shall declare for King Stannis, but instead the fat man smiled an odd, twinkling smile and said, "And now I have a wedding to attend. I am too fat to sit a horse, as any man with eyes can plainly see. As a boy I loved to ride, and as a young man I handled a mount well enough to win some small acclaim in the lists, but those days are done. My body has become a prison more dire than the Wolf's Den. Even so, I must go to Winterfell. Roose Bolton wants me on my knees, and beneath the velvet courtesy he shows the iron mail. I shall go by barge and litter, attended by a hundred knights and my good friends from the Twins. The Freys came here by sea. They have no horses with them, so I shall present each of them with a palfrey as a guest gift. Do hosts still give guest gifts in the south?"

Manderly also gives the freys palfreys, or perhaps Pale Freys, like in the Pale Mare that kills three people of every four that mounts it? Too bad that only three Freys went to White Harbor, if four went, perhaps one could have survived to tell the tale.

[Corvo the Crow]

So, I’ve just learned that a falling star means a divine quality bestowed from above. 

Next is a bit of a merger between show and the books. Previously I have mentioned the Karstark sigil; While their sigil is a sunburst in the books, in the show, their sigil is a white sunrise on a black field, sunrise means hope. Since the sun rises from the easr and they are the eastern most major house of the North, could we think of their sigil as a rising sun for the books as well?

Or perhaps a risen one?

Are there any word plays on Karstark?

Since I am talking about Karstarks and suns, what about Thenns? A bronze disk with red flames on a white field, looking very much like a sun. Bronze disk is Thenns who wear bronze armor, but also first men, red flames come from the faith of R’hllor and the sun is from Karstarks. What about the white field? Is that... SNOW? Both literal snow and our special snow flake, Jon Snow, who acted as a father to both Alys and the Wildlings? Going with the literal snow, what would Karstarks or at least Alys Karstark turning Thenn; a rising or risen white sun ,on a dark night, a sun of winter, now turning a red/bronze sun on snow mean?

Could that mean a rising son/sun of winter, a symbol of hope, will rise in a dark night, unify the peoples of Westeros and end the long night, bringing the dawn, a red/bronze sun, to winter?

 

Speaking of dawn, dawn is the rise of the sun after the night and the sword named “Dawn” is a white sword, so again, a white sun rising in the dark?

Adding some personal thoughts, I have long thought the Starks to have shared ancestors with the Daynes in the sense Starks and Daynes are branches of the same family, just like Karstarks and Starks, but the Daynes(and Starks as well) have changed their name after a family member, the Night King, brought shame to the family.

[Jô Maltese]

3 hours ago, Corvo the Crow said:

So, I’ve just learned that a falling star means a divine quality bestowed from above. 

Next is a bit of a merger between show and the books. Previously I have mentioned the Karstark sigil; While their sigil is a sunburst in the books, in the show, their sigil is a white sunrise on a black field, sunrise means hope. Since the sun rises from the easr and they are the eastern most major house of the North, could we think of their sigil as a rising sun for the books as well?

Or perhaps a risen one?

Are there any word plays on Karstark?

Since I am talking about Karstarks and suns, what about Thenns? A bronze disk with red flames on a white field, looking very much like a sun. Bronze disk is Thenns who wear bronze armor, but also first men, red flames come from the faith of R’hllor and the sun is from Karstarks. What about the white field? Is that... SNOW? Both literal snow and our special snow flake, Jon Snow, who acted as a father to both Alys and the Wildlings? Going with the literal snow, what would Karstarks or at least Alys Karstark turning Thenn; a rising or risen white sun ,on a dark night, a sun of winter, now turning a red/bronze sun on snow mean?

Could that mean a rising son/sun of winter, a symbol of hope, will rise in a dark night, unify the peoples of Westeros and end the long night, bringing the dawn, a red/bronze sun, to winter?

 

Speaking of dawn, dawn is the rise of the sun after the night and the sword named “Dawn” is a white sword, so again, a white sun rising in the dark?

Adding some personal thoughts, I have long thought the Starks to have shared ancestors with the Daynes in the sense Starks and Daynes are branches of the same family, just like Karstarks and Starks, but the Daynes(and Starks as well) have changed their name after a family member, the Night King, brought shame to the family.

And this also ties in well with Lightbringer...