Wow, I never noticed that v.17

[Lady Anna]

6 minutes ago, Alexis-something-Rose said:

Counter to that;

Daario is also Tyroshi who dyes his hair blue making his eyes look blue. That is the reason given for Aegon's blue hair, to disguise his violet eyes. And when Daario dyes his hair purple, his eyes look almost purple, like some long lost Valyrian according to Dany

Oh I'm not denying that. My post wasn't about his hair per se, it was just the reference to a tyroshi mother and the fact Daemon, who also had an alias and dyed his hair, had one too. I mean, from a writer's perspective this could be a way to link the two and give the reader a clue. It isn't about the in-universe characters themselves and their reason to dye their hair.

[Alexis-something-Rose]

7 minutes ago, Lady Anna said:

Oh I'm not denying that. My post wasn't about his hair per se, it was just the reference to a tyroshi mother and the fact Daemon, who also had an alias and dyed his hair, had one too. I mean, from a writer's perspective this could be a way to link the two and give the reader a clue. It isn't about the in-universe characters themselves and their reason to dye their hair.

I agree. The connections he makes are always interesting. 

[Lost Melnibonean]

1 hour ago, Alexis-something-Rose said:

Counter to that;

Daario is also Tyroshi who dyes his hair blue making his eyes look blue. That is the reason given for Aegon's blue hair, to disguise his violet eyes. And when Daario dyes his hair purple, his eyes look almost purple, like some long lost Valyrian according to Dany

https://asoiaf.westeros.org/index.php?/topic/145144-advanced-crackpottery-4-daario-naharis-international-man-of-mystery/

[Corvo the Crow]

Just some fun "Jon is Azor Ahai" stuff. It never gets old despite 

 

"Born amidst salt and smoke. Is he a ham?" 

- Renly Baratheon, 299 AC.

 

 

Quote

Wick Whittlestick wore the keys on a ring about his neck. They all looked alike to Jon, yet somehow Wick found the right one for every door. Once inside, he would take a fist-sized chunk of chalk from his pouch and mark each cask and sack and barrel as he counted them while Marsh compared the new count to the old.

In the granaries were oats and wheat and barley, and barrels of coarse ground flour. In the root cellars strings of onions and garlic dangled from the rafters, and bags of carrots, parsnips, radishes, and white and yellow turnips filled the shelves. One storeroom held wheels of cheese so large it took two men to move them. In the next, casks of salt beef, salt pork, salt mutton, and salt cod were stacked ten feet high. Three hundred hams and three thousand long black sausages hung from ceiling beams below the smokehouse. In the spice locker they found peppercorns, cloves, and cinnamon, mustard seeds, coriander, sage and clary sage and parsley, blocks of salt. Elsewhere were casks of apples and pears, dried peas, dried figs, bags of walnuts, bags of chestnuts, bags of almonds, planks of dry smoked salmon, clay jars packed with olives in oil and sealed with wax. One storeroom offered potted hare, haunch of deer in honey, pickled cabbage, pickled beets, pickled onions, pickled eggs, and pickled herring.

As they moved from one vault to another, the wormways seemed to grow colder. Before long Jon could see their breath frosting in the lantern light. "We're beneath the Wall."

 

Where is the place of salt and smoke, if not Castle Black's food stores, I ask you?

 

 

and some Maester Aemon wisdom before concluding.

Quote

. . . or not." Aemon chuckled softly. "Or I am an old man, feverish and dying." He closed his white eyes wearily, then forced them open once again. "I should not have left the Wall. Lord Snow could not have known, but I should have seen it. Fire consumes, but cold preserves. The Wall . . . but it is too late to go running back. The Stranger waits outside my door and will not be denied. Steward, you have served me faithfully. Do this one last brave thing for me. Go down to the ships, Sam. Learn all you can about these dragons."

 

Cold preserves not just food, but bodies as well!

 

Quote

The dead men were carried to one of the storerooms along the base of the Wall, a dark cold cell chiseled from the ice and used to keep meat and grain and sometimes even beer. Jon saw that Mormont's horse was fed and watered and groomed before he took care of his own. Afterward he sought out his friends. Grenn and Toad were on watch, but he found Pyp in the common hall. "What's happened?" he asked.

...

The living wildlings Jon sent off to have their wounds and frostbites tended. Some hot food and warm clothes would restore most of them, he hoped, though the Hornfoot man was like to lose both feet. The corpses he consigned to the ice cells.

 

 

Jon will re-born amidst salted mutton and smoked salmon What is dead may never die but rises again, salted and smoked!

 

Another one, this time not a joke.

Azor Ahai will be born under a bleeding star. House Martell's siğil is is a red sun, with a spear struck through. So a sun, wounded by the spear, red with blood perhaps?  In a sense, someone born in Dorne is born under a bleeding star as their ruling house's banner is one.

 

[Alexis-something-Rose]

32 minutes ago, Corvo the Crow said:

Azor Ahai will be born under a bleeding star. House Martell's siğil is is a red sun, with a spear struck through. So a sun, wounded by the spear, red with blood perhaps?  In a sense, someone born in Dorne is born under a bleeding star as their ruling house's banner is one.

That's actually interesting. 

Arthur Dayne's sigil is a white star, so he could also become a bleeding star a la Ser Patrek after he got Wun Wuned.

Actually there's one thing of note between Dorne and where Dany hatched the dragons. The tower of joy is located in the red mountains of Dorne and Dany was in the Red Waste. Summerhall (because I'm mildly obsessed with it) located at the foothills or in the red mountains of Dorne.

[Corvo the Crow]

Some ToJ since I opened up that side of the map.

Quote

"I looked for you on the Trident," Ned said to them.

 

"We were not there," Ser Gerold answered.

 

"Woe to the Usurper if we had been," said Ser Oswell.

At this point in time, Robert must have been crowned and he’s indeed an usurper now, so nothing wrong there. What’s odd is, where did Ser Oswell, stuck in a half ruined tower out in nowhere with no ravens got this information?

Ser Gerold answers the question, they weren’t there.

They haven’t waited for months there for Rhaegar to return, they just went there very recently to hide after Robert became king.

Where were they before? Well I can’t find quotes for that one but it I think Daynes were more involved in this whole affair than seems to the eye. Especially considering  the only Dornishman in the trio is a Dayne and Ashara was supposedly Ned’s lover. The whole Wylla cover story may be there not just to help keep Jon a secret but also keep Dayne involvement hidden as well. The first Wylla, the pregnant maid in the Dayne Household, was actually Lyanna.

 

So here’s how it happened; Word of King’s Landing reaches Starfall, KG take Lyanna to hide in the mountains until her pregnancy ends. 

Ned has no idea where to find Lyanna nor the remaining KG, but it’s known Rhaegar was last seen in Dorne so he goes to Starfall since Arthur is from there and his sister Ashara loves Ned. Ashara, since he loves and trusts Ned and Ned is Lyanna’s brother, tells Ned where they went. Only after then Ned knows of the whereabouts of this broken tower in the middle of nowhere.

[Jô Maltese]

Just found this little gem in my umpteenth reading ; Jon is reflecting on what to do with Arya whom he thinks has just arrived at Castle Black (when it's Alys Karstark in fact) : 

Quote

The best solution he could see would mean dispatching her to Eastwatch and asking Cotter Pyke to put her on a ship to someplace across the sea, beyond the reach of all these quarrelsome kings. It would need to wait until the ships returned from Hardhome, to be sure. She could return to Braavos with Tycho Nestoris. Perhaps the Iron Bank could help find some noble family to foster her. Braavos was the nearest of the Free Cities, though … which made it both the best and the worst choice. Lorath or the Port of Ibben might be safer. Wherever he might send her, though, Arya would need silver to support her, a roof above her head, someone to protect her. She was only a child.

ADwD - Jon IX

Arrr. The irony of it! In the next chapter, "The Bling Girl" Arya is a beggar (moneyless and roofless then) in Braavos who doesn't need anyone's protection, even against the kindly man. Jon could not be more wrong in his assessment - somewhat foreshadowing his future doomed decisions...

ETA: And Arya spells it out:

Quote

Even Jon would never know blind Beth, I bet. That made her sad.

 

[Seams]

4 hours ago, Jô Maltese said:

She could return to Braavos . . . Wherever he might send her, though, Arya would need silver to support her, a roof above her head, someone to protect her. She was only a child.

Very nice catch. The thing that strikes me is that this also describes Dany and Viserys being sent overseas as children for their own protection. I have a strong suspicion that Ned was part of the conspiracy to send Dany to Essos, perhaps hatching the plan with the four loyal men who helped Willem Darry get the kids off of Dragonstone. I wonder whether Jon here is an echo of Ned (or of someone else who helped Dany and Viserys).

There are also three necessities on Jon's list: silver, a roof and someone to provide protection. Dany has an unnamed horse called her silver and a husband and a "bear" then a dragon to protect her. As for the roof, she longs for a red door, but settles for a pyramid for awhile, then finds herself out in the open again at "Dragonstone II" with Drogon in the Dothraki Sea. The roof seems to be the hard part for her.

[Lady Anna]

In Sam IV, AFFC, Sam thinks this:

"Maester is not a name. You could call him Aemon, though."

Gilly thought about that. "Dalla brought him forth during battle, as the swords sang all around her. That should be his name. Aemon Battleborn. Aemon Steelsong."

A name even my lord father might like. A warrior's name. The boy was Mance Rayder's son and Craster's grandson, after all. He had none of Sam's craven blood. "Yes. Call him that."

 

They're talking about Dalla's son who is with Gilly, but he says he's ''Craster's grandson''? Is this a mistake or is it because now Gilly is his mother since they were switched, so he's both things, Mance's son and Craster's grandson?

[Corvo the Crow]

 

@Seams

Since we have discussed shield hall; what do you think of Soren Shieldbreaker, whose castle is stonedoor? I find his name and his castle’s name (shields are doors) and him giving his axe to Jon in the Shieldhall rather curious.

According to wiktionary his name also comes from Latin severinus which means serious and grave.

Break a gravestone door perhaps?

There’s also Greyguard to his west. The Greyshield in the Reac is the Westernmost of the shield isles and wait for it... It’s ruling house is Grimm with their seat Grimston.

[Lady Anna]

Just a little quote:

"I thought the greenseers were the wizards of the children," Bran said. "The singers, I mean."

"In a sense. Those you call the children of the forest have eyes as golden as the sun, but once in a great while one is born amongst them with eyes as red as blood, or green as the moss on a tree in the heart of the forest. By these signs do the gods mark those they have chosen to receive the gift. The chosen ones are not robust, and their quick years upon the earth are few, for every song must have its balance.

- Bran III, ADWD

[Seams]

3 hours ago, Corvo the Crow said:

Since we have discussed shield hall; what do you think of Soren Shieldbreaker, whose castle is stonedoor? I find his name and his castle’s name (shields are doors) and him giving his axe to Jon in the Shieldhall rather curious.

According to wiktionary his name also comes from Latin severinus which means serious and grave.

Break a gravestone door perhaps?

There’s also Greyguard to his west. The Greyshield in the Reac is the Westernmost of the shield isles and wait for it... It’s ruling house is Grimm with their seat Grimston.

This is a great set of questions and very timely for me! If you'll indulge me in a tangent.

I have been trying to figure out which characters are able to go through doors. Some seem to be able to lead people to doors but can't go through. Or maybe a combination of two characters is needed to go through some doors, like a combination lock? It might be that certain doors can be opened by specific characters or at certain times, but those characters can't open all doors at all times. For instance, Arya uses her coin from Jaqen to trick the guard at Harrenhal and escape with Gendry and Hot Pie. There may have been a special combination of the coin, the swords stolen by Gendry, and those three characters that allowed them to go through the gate at that moment.

One of the things that got me thinking about this is the debate on another thread about how Stannis or others who are outside of Winterfell will gain entry to the castle, which seems to have special defenses, perhaps like the spells woven into the walls of Storm's End. I lost interest in the arguments in that discussion because, in my head, I already knew that whoever has Theon will be able to enter Winterfell in a way that no one else can gain entry. (And I'm pretty sure that entry will be through a tunnel into the lower levels of the crypt.)

How did I know that, I had to ask myself.

For one thing, there were earlier incidents of "Theon as key" at Winterfell: Theon had no problem getting into Winterfell with the Ironborn some weeks (months?) earlier, flowing over the walls. (At the same time, "Bran" was unable to "wolf" - the opposite of flow - over the walls of Winterfell when he tried to warg Summer into climbing the trunk of a tree that was leaning up against the wall of the gods wood.) Roose and Ramsay Bolton have used Theon to take Moat Cailin (another First Men castle) and then to accompany the wedding party to Winterfell and to give away the bride. (I think House Cassel personifies the castle Winterfell and Vayon and Jeyne Poole personify the sacred pool before the weirwood tree, so it is significant that Theon can interact with these characters or that he has the power to "give away" Jeyne.) Theon was also the person who showed Lady Dustin into the crypt when her men couldn't even find the door. The spearwives question him closely about how he got into the castle - we saw Osha seeming to search for a passage when she was at the castle, so I think the Free Folk have this Gendel & Gorne belief about tunnels to Winterfell, if they could just find the entrance, and they recognize that Theon has the power to find a door they cannot find. Theon leads the way up the steps to fArya / Jeyne Poole and then escapes with Jeyne over the wall - he has taken the sacred pool out of Winterfell, and this creates a crisis for the Boltons.

So Theon is pretty clearly a guy who can cross barriers and navigate liminal places - doors, walls, steps, crypts, etc. (Apparently Mance also has this power, but we can analyze him in a different post if there is interest.)

But let's get back closer to your topic.

Maybe Jon is also able to cross barriers. I am pretty sure that Jeor Mormont made a very deliberate effort to get Jon and the direwolf Ghost to the Fist on the night of a full moon with the comet over head. Like a special exit or entrance would be open only at that moment and Jon was the only person who could get through that opening, perhaps because his wolf would show him the way.

Perhaps similarly, Jon is the only person who can open the gate at Castle Black and let the wildlings through. It is an amazing, historical event when they cross the barrier, bringing treasure (Jon found "treasure" when Ghost led him to the obsidian cache at the Fist).

Stonedoor, the castle he awards to Soren Shieldbreaker, is near where Jon climbed over the Wall with Jarl and Styr and other wildlings. Jarl doesn't make it, falling from the Wall and being impaled on a tree - Jon later tells Val that the Wall killed Jarl and Val says that he always climbed too fast. Styr later dies in the assault on Castle Black, also while trying to climb the Wall, but on the other side. It's almost as if Jarl and Styr lose at the game of "Come Into My Castle" or "Lord of the Crossing" that we have seen mentioned in the books. Jon is not aware of directly killing either man, but I think he has a power of which he is not aware. He can cross the Wall in either direction, and he can bring guests, but they cannot. (But they have successfully crossed with raiding parties in the past. Why do they lose this power when Jon comes along? Does he steal their power? Does Mance know this will happen when he sends them on this mission?)

Before leaving for the Wall-climbing mission, recall that Ygritte led Jon into a cavern where they made love completely naked for the first time, without the cover of their furs. Ygritte says that this cavern is the entrance to the tunnels that lead under the Wall and into Winterfell. Maybe she gives Jon a special power to cross barriers with this act of love. Of course, she comes with him when he climbs the Wall - maybe she is the one with the barrier-crossing magic at this point and she leads Jon across.

If the tunnel to Winterfell emerges in the crypt, then the cavern at the wilding end is probably also a symbolic crypt, which may get at your insight about gravestones as part of this stone door symbolism. Ygritte wants Jon to stay with her forever in that cavern. When she dies, I think Jon recalls the cavern and wishes they had stayed there. So perhaps there is a kind of longing for the underworld, or for life after death. In the Gendel and Gorne legend, Gorne leads his people back into the tunnels and they get lost in there, wandering for generations. Of course, Night's Watch men go to the underground brothels at Mole's Town to dig for buried treasure (there's that treasure imagery again) which means having sex.

So now Jon has reopened the Shield Hall, that has been closed up for 300 years or something like that. If we accept that shields = doors, many shields ( = doors) line the walls, and those doors have either been abandoned and forgotten or the men who brought those shields have not yet died. So many unopened doors! Jon has given Soren Shieldbreaker the castle at Stone Door to rebuild and defend. In return, Shieldbreaker seems to give Jon an axe implying, as you point out, that he wants to help Jon break down doors.

We saw Jeor Mormont give a special, ornate axe to Craster when Craster requested it. Asha caught a thrown axe in midair and told Theon it was her husband (and a dirk was her suckling babe). I was thinking that an axe represents an Ironborn version of marriage, the way a cloak represents marriage in the mainstream Westeros wedding ceremony. But maybe an axe represents the breaking down of a barrier.

I should probably read up on the Shield Islands and the details surrounding them.

Some of my shield ideas comes from Dunk & Egg, where Dunk inherits the shield carried by Ser Arlan of Pennytree. I believe that Pennytree is an important entrance to the Underworld. Egg and Bloodraven may have chosen Dunk to educate Egg because he has a special ability to cross magical barriers, allowing the future king to really get to know his kingdom in a way he could not in the company of any other protector. Dunk, Egg and Tanselle Too Tall collaborate to paint a new sigil on the shield, and Steely Pate rebuilds the shield to make it stronger.

In the first story, Dunk uses Aerion Brightflame's own shield to defeat Aerion in battle. It's as if he is demonstrating that Aerion is not competent to control the Targaryen "door," and should be removed from the line of succession. The armorer Steely Pate reinforces Dunk's shield before the Trial of Seven, adding an iron rim and bands to the wood, and reminding Dunk of the rhyme, "Oak and Iron guard me well or else I'm dead and doomed to hell." Don't you know, soon after getting that magical, reinforced shield, the one-eyed knight Ser Robyn Rhysling joins Dunk's team in the Trial of Seven. Ser Robyn's sigil is an oak and iron door. Dunk notes at one point that his own shield is not as strong as the shield of Aerion Brightflame. Interestingly, Ser Robyn (oak and iron door) knocks Daeron the Drunken Targaryen from his horse in the Trial of Seven - taking out a less strong competitor from the Targaryen line of succession - before Dunk uses the stronger shield to knock Aerion out of the competition. Both princes Daeron and Aerion may lose the ability to play "Come Into My Castle" with these shield defeats.

But I could go on and on. I suspect Jon may have opened Pandora's Box when he let the wildlings through he Wall. Many will be loyal to him and help with the defense of the Wall, but others may have brought new problems. (Val, I'm looking at you.) So we will have to see if he is using his barrier-crossing powers wisely, or how taking an axe to a stone door might help to solve the problem in the remaining books.

[Megorova]

Gregor Clegane, the Mountain, was eight feet tall (2,4 meters), and he weighed over thirty stone (420 lbs, or 190 kgs). It was said about the Smiling Knight, member of Kingswood Brotherhood, that he was "The Mountain of my boyhood. Half as big but twice as mad. " - AFFC, Jaime IV.

I realised, that me and some other readers were under mistaken impression, that Smiling Knight was some sort of vicious giant, like the Mountain. Though it seems, that he was a person of an average height and build, not someone like Gregor, or the Hound, or Hodor.

@Feather Crystal Thus, there's no way that Smiling Knight was Robert Baratheon, because Robert was BIG. He was 6 and half feet tall (198 centimeters).

[Melifeather]

3 minutes ago, Megorova said:

Gregor Clegane, the Mountain, was eight feet tall (2,4 meters), and he weighed over thirty stone (420 lbs, or 190 kgs). It was said about the Smiling Knight, member of Kingswood Brotherhood, that he was "The Mountain of my boyhood. Half as big but twice as mad. " - AFFC, Jaime IV.

I realised, that me and some other readers were under mistaken impression, that Smiling Knight was some sort of vicious giant, like the Mountain. Though it seems, that he was a person of an average height and build, not someone like Gregor, or the Hound, or Hodor.

@Feather Crystal Thus, there's no way that Smiling Knight was Robert Baratheon, because Robert was BIG. He was 6 and half feet tall (198 centimeters).

That's just silly, because you are taking Jaime's description too literally. Are you asserting the Smiling Knight was only 4 feet tall? Jaime is saying the Smiling Knight was big - not quite as big as Gregor - but still 'the Mountain of his childhood'.

[Melifeather]

7 minutes ago, Megorova said:

Gregor Clegane, the Mountain, was eight feet tall (2,4 meters), and he weighed over thirty stone (420 lbs, or 190 kgs). It was said about the Smiling Knight, member of Kingswood Brotherhood, that he was "The Mountain of my boyhood. Half as big but twice as mad. " - AFFC, Jaime IV.

I realised, that me and some other readers were under mistaken impression, that Smiling Knight was some sort of vicious giant, like the Mountain. Though it seems, that he was a person of an average height and build, not someone like Gregor, or the Hound, or Hodor.

@Feather Crystal Thus, there's no way that Smiling Knight was Robert Baratheon, because Robert was BIG. He was 6 and half feet tall (198 centimeters).

Of course - alternately I think the Smiling Knight could have been Ser Gregor himself - an earlier, not yet full-grown, teen-aged Mountain.

[Megorova]

9 minutes ago, Feather Crystal said:

Jaime is saying the Smiling Knight was big - not quite as big as Gregor - but still 'the Mountain of his childhood'.

He was the Mountain of Jaime's childhood, in a sense that he was a notorious psychopath and a sadist, that he was feared, and had a bad reputation, same as Gregor. Not in a sense, that he was big like the Mountain.

9 minutes ago, Feather Crystal said:

That's just silly, because you are taking Jaime's description too literally. Are you asserting the Smiling Knight was only 4 feet tall?

No, I'm asserting that he weighed approximately 80 kilograms, which is an average weight of an average male. Average for North America - look in the link - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_body_weight#Average_weight_around_the_world

 

[Melifeather]

1 minute ago, Megorova said:

He was the Mountain of Jaime's childhood, in a sense that he was a notorious psychopath and a sadist, that he was feared, and had a bad reputation, same as Gregor. Not in a sense, that he was big like the Mountain.

No, I'm asserting that he weighed approximately 80 kilograms, which is an average weight of an average male.

 

Robert wasn't fat until after he became king. In his youth, Ned said he was built like 'a maiden's dream'. Maybe Robert only weighed 210 lbs prior to the Rebellion? How could we know?

Here's the most direct evidence connecting Robert to the Smiling Knight - his death scene:

Quote

“Stinks,” Robert said. “The stink of death, don’t think I can’t smell it. Bastard did me good, eh? But I . . . I paid him back in kind, Ned. ” The king’s smile was as terrible as his wound, his teeth red. “Drove a knife right through his eye. Ask them if I didn’t. Ask them. ”

Robert's smile on his death bed was a bloody horror. I believe we are to make a direct connection between his bloody-toothed smile to the 'bloody horror' of Masha Heddle's smile, which gets it's red from chewing sour leaf. Sour Leaf is connected to Allaquo in the Cat of the Canals chapter. The titled chapters tell two stories with one of them hidden amongst the parallels, symbolism, and metaphors.

In the Cat of the Canal chapter Arya is 'Cat', and she notes that 'Quence found Allaquo abed with Sloey'. Quence sounds like “quince”, which is a pear-shaped fruit that can leave a bitter taste in one’s mouth. Not to mention that when something goes wrong, colloquially you could say "it went all pear-shaped”. In other words, somebody found two people in bed together and it went terribly wrong. 'Quince' is often thought to be the fruit of the forbidden Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden. There is also a Turkish expression, “to eat the quince”, which apparently refers to an unpleasant situation to avoid. Ned has a memory of talking to Lyanna about her engagement to Robert. She frets that he won't keep to one bed. Is it possible that Lyanna was "Quence"? And that knowledge is what drove her into making rash decisions. Lastly, the Bael fruit is sometimes called the Bengal Quince. This last tidbit may be a tiny confirmation that Jon is the bitter Bael fruit of a situation that went all pear-shaped.  

Sloey is generally thought to be Ashara as well as the ship named the Sloe-Eyed Maid. These are symbolic references to Ashara, because sloe berries are purple and Ashara was known to have purple eyes.

The closest word to Allaquo is 'Alaqua', which is a Native American word for the Sweet Gum Tree. This tree has pointed five-star-shaped leaves and round spiky balls as fruit. It is also known as redgum - which echoes the red sourleaf chewed in the story. Chewing it causes a pink froth on the lips and stains the mouth and teeth red, causing a noticeable red smile. The "red smile" brings to mind the Smiling Knight. Catelyn Stark considered Masha Heddle’s smile to be a “bloody horror”. Masha Heddle is the innkeeper of the Crossroads Inn in the Riverlands, so I have a growing suspicion that "sourleaf" is meant to connect our train of thought from Allaquo to redgum, sourleaf, bloody-smile, Smiling Knight, and a bloody horror, and connect all that to Sloey - aka Ashara.

Going back to Quence finding Allaquo abed with Sloey and you have somebody finding Robert in bed with Ashara. The only person that ever mentions that Ashara was 'dishonored' was Barristan Selmy, and Barristan said that Ashara turned to Stark - presumably for comfort or help.

 

[Seams]

ACoK, Arya IV

A Lannister knight to Yoren, suspicious he is part of Dondarrion's group:

By night, all banners look black.

ASoS, Bran III

Jojen to Bran:

By night all cloaks are black, Your Grace.

ASoS, Dany IV

Dany to Missandei, about a dream:

"I was looking for a house with a red door, but by night all the doors are black."

ADwD, Jon VI

I believe this is when Jon momentarily mistakes Melisandre for Ygritte:

At night all robes are grey.

The Mystery Knight, always Dunk's POV:

The night's grey banners were reborn in half a hundred gaudy colors.

So night = death and an absence of color. (But is it dark and full of terror?) Dawn = rebirth and the presence of color.

Also interesting to note that Jon and Dunk see grey at night, not black. I wonder why their night vision is different?

 

[GloubieBoulga]

On 4/14/2019 at 6:27 PM, Seams said:

For one thing, there were earlier incidents of "Theon as key" at Winterfell: Theon had no problem getting into Winterfell with the Ironborn some weeks (months?) earlier, flowing over the walls. (At the same time, "Bran" was unable to "wolf" - the opposite of flow - over the walls of Winterfell when he tried to warg Summer into climbing the trunk of a tree that was leaning up against the wall of the gods wood.)

I never noticed the reverse wolf/flow, but I find it's a very nice catch, full of meaning ! I didn't quote what you wrote after that about Jeyne Poole and so on, but I like all this part of your post (and not only because I'm actually convinced that the black pool could be at least the black blood of a sacrified wolf prince, and that Winterfell will end in a litteral overflow - its weirwood burning, the black pool overflowing and the walls collapsing so the "spirit" of the ancient dead "wolf" can finally escape^^)

[Lady Anna]

Ser Ryman came stomping up the gallows steps in company with a straw-haired slattern as drunk as he was. Her gown laced up the front, but someone had undone the laces to the navel, so her breasts were spilling out. They were large and heavy, with big brown nipples. On her head a circlet of hammered bronze sat askew, graven with runes and ringed with small black swords. When she saw Jaime, she laughed. "Who in seven hells is this one?"

- Jaime VI, AFFC

This is Robb's crown. Explains why Jaime didn't let Ryman take it with him.

What Aegon had done with it no man could say. Lord Hoster's smith had done his work well, and Robb's crown looked much as the other was said to have looked in the tales told of the Stark kings of old; an open circlet of hammered bronze incised with the runes of the First Men, surmounted by nine black iron spikes wrought in the shape of longswords. Of gold and silver and gemstones, it had none; bronze and iron were the metals of winter, dark and strong to fight against the cold.

- Catelyn I, ACOK