When characters are winds, masts and ships.

[Seams]

Some examples of winds:

A daring she had never known filled Daenerys then, and she gave the filly her head.

The silver horse leapt the flames as if she had wings.

When she pulled up before Magister Illyrio, she said, "Tell Khal Drogo that he has given me the wind."  The fat Pentoshi stroked his yellow beard as he repeated her words in Dothraki, and Dany saw her new husband smile for the first time.

(Game, Chap. 11, Daenerys II)

Stannis: I stopped believing in gods the day I saw the Windproud break up across the bay. Any gods so monstrous as to drown my mother and father would never have my worship, I vowed.

(Clash, Prologue)

Theon did not need to be told that Black Wind was Asha's longship. He had not seen his sister in ten years, but that much he knew of her. Odd that she would call it that, when Robb Stark had a wolf named Grey Wind. "Stark is grey and Greyjoy's black," he murmured, smiling, "but it seems we're both windy."

(Clash, Chap. 11, Theon I)

Some examples of masts:

"My eyes can see your face. My ears can hear your laughter. And my cock's gone hard as a mast for you."

(Clash, Chap. 24, Theon II)

If I do this I am no better than Dareon, Sam thought, but it felt too good to stop. And suddenly his cock was out, jutting upward from his breeches like a fat pink mast.

(Feast, Chap. 35, Samwell IV)

By the time the storm abated and the surviving passengers and crew came crawling back on deck, like pale pink worms wriggling to the surface after a rain, the Selaesori Qhoran was a broken thing, floating low in the water and listing ten degrees to port, her hull sprung in half a hundred places, her hold awash in seawater, her mast a splintered ruin no taller than a dwarf.

(Dance, Chap. 40, Tyrion IX)

Is GRRM telling us that some people are winds and some people are masts? Do these character types team up to work together?

Not long ago, I noted again the wordplay around Sam Tarly and masts and mastiffs but it hadn't dawned on me that, of course, masts and maesters are probably also a wordplay pair. Are all maesters like masts? Marwyn's nickname (the Mastiff) makes more sense if it is derived from the word "maester". Initially, Gilly suggests that Dalla's baby could be named Maester but Sam tells her that is not a name, but the baby could be named Aemon. I'm guessing Gilly's initial suggestion tells us that baby Aemon will be a "mast" character, if there is such a thing. Of course, the exchange between Sam and Gilly takes place aboard the ship called The Cinnamon Wind.

The excerpts I've cited don't begin to explore the comparisons between characters and ships or figureheads: as I looked for the Theon passage I wanted, I was surprised to note that Asha refers to herself a couple of times as a shy maid - somehow, I had assumed GRRM had chosen the name as an allusion to Sansa but apparently I was taking too much for granted. The figurehead of the Selaesori Qhoran seems to resemble Tywin, in my mind. A number of ships have significant names tied to characters or legends - King Robert's Hammer, Lady Lyanna, Black Betha, Lady Marya.

If characters are winds and masts, what would the metaphor of the sail stand for? Is a sail like a cloak, used to "marry" the wind to the mast? Here, the sail seems to be a bird or dragon:

The wind returned as a whispered threat, cold and damp, brushing over his cheek, flapping the wet sail, swirling and tugging at Moqorro's scarlet robes. . . . Something huge flapped overhead, and Tyrion glanced up in time to see the sail taking wing, with two men still dangling from the lines. Then he heard a crack. Oh, bloody hell, he had time to think, that had to be the mast.

(Dance, Chap. 40, Tyrion IX)

I note, too, that a number of these wind and mast passages seem to take place alongside a religious discussion. Dany is learning about the beliefs of the Dothraki, Stannis loses his faith, Asha (as Esgred) is checking to see whether Theon still follows the Drowned God, Sam has to say the words for Maester Aemon's memorial service, Moqorro is among the casualties of the storm. Maybe we are getting glimpses here of the Storm God and/or Durran Godsgrief and Elenei.

What do you think is going on with this metaphor?

[Springwatch]

Masts might link up to sticks and staffs, and, being wooden, maybe also to those amazingly animated trees.

At the beginning of her journey, Arya fought with a stick, or a wooden sword. She was relatively weak, and the stick might represent her in the same way that 'sword' can mean the soldier that uses the sword.

Arstan Whitebeard fought with a staff as tall as he was, and was totally lethal. Maybe the height of the staff is in proportion to his fighting prowess - and more, he casts a larger shadow i.e. he has more influence in the world.

A mast would be a giant, or a god. Not sure what this means for Sam. Not fighting ability, but maybe another source of power?

For winds, I can only think of the 'winds of change' - in that case, the Storm God is the bringer of intense change (creative destruction, probably).

And the ship unites all these, crossing the wind and sea. Maybe the ship is the giant or hero, and the mast is his/her staff (in which case the fate of the named ships is important).

[The Fattest Leech]

Seams, you have a great thinkpiece thread here. I don't have the answers to all of your ideas, well, other than GRRM reallly loves his ships and from childhood to almost all of his works he frequently includes ships as interchangeable metaphors for escape, second life, etc. This seems to again go back to his childhood in Bayonne where he describes his "whole world" as being the five block radius he was allowed to go and how he liked to watch the cargo ship on the harbor and would dream about their journeys.

Anyway, what currently brought me back to this thread was this idea you mentioned...

Quote

The excerpts I've cited don't begin to explore the comparisons between characters and ships or figureheads: as I looked for the Theon passage I wanted, I was surprised to note that Asha refers to herself a couple of times as a shy maid - somehow, I had assumed GRRM had chosen the name as an allusion to Sansa but apparently I was taking too much for granted. The figurehead of the Selaesori Qhoran seems to resemble Tywin, in my mind. A number of ships have significant names tied to characters or legends - King Robert's Hammer, Lady Lyanna, Black Betha, Lady Marya.

I can certainly see the connections you are thinking about. As you know, Martin often has his symbols relate to two or three character plot points, and I think this could maybe be another case. Pardon my laziness, but for lack of time I am going to paste something I wrote a while back that I just came across again while looking for something else, and this paste reminded me of your thread:

A Dance with Dragons - Tyrion VIII

The Selaesori Qhoran was a wallowing tub of five hundred tons, with a deep hold, high castles fore and aft, and a single mast between. At her forecastle stood a grotesque figurehead, some worm-eaten wooden eminence with a constipated look and a scroll tucked up under one arm. Tyrion had never seen an uglier ship. Her crew was no prettier. Her captain, a mean-mouthed, flinty, kettle-bellied man with close-set, greedy eyes, was a bad cyvasse player and a worse loser. Under him served four mates, freedmen all, and fifty slaves bound to the ship, each with a crude version of the cog's figurehead tattooed upon one cheek. No-Nose, the sailors liked to call Tyrion, no matter how many times he told them his name was Hugor Hill.

Three of the mates and more than three-quarters of the crew were fervent worshipers of the Lord of Light. Tyrion was less certain about the captain, who always emerged for the evening prayers but took no other part in them. But Moqorro was the true master of the Selaesori Qhoran, at least for this voyage.

"Lord of Light, bless your slave Moqorro, and light his way in the dark places of the world," the red priest boomed. "And defend your righteous slave Benerro. Grant him courage. Grant him wisdom. Fill his heart with fire."

 

Wow, I never noticed how this scene is very much like one of Jon's at the wall after Stannis arrives.

• The captain emerging yet not taking place in prayers is a lot like Stannis and his slow loss of faith in Mel and her visions.
• The captain also being mean-mouthed and flinty who is bad at playing the game of cyvasse (of Thrones).
• Selaesori Qhoran = Queen Selyse. This goes right along with my idea that I laid out in my Nymeria thread that Mel uses ships as a euphemism for people/Free Folk.
• Selyse is definitely the more crazy devout follower of Melisandre R'hollorism than Stannis is.
• Moqorro is a slave, like Melisandre remembers about herself- Melony Lot 7. That raises some questions, doesn't it?
• Filling hearts with fire is the sigil of Stannis under the influence of R'hollor/Mel when he changes the Baratheon sigil and puts the stag inside the fiery heart of R'hollor.
• And Tyrion's description of the Selaesori Qhoran kinda matches how Val and some of the guys at Castle Black, and well, everyone describes Queen Selyse.
• I think Melisandre and Selyse together is the Jon version of the perfumed seneschal. Mel is known for her spicy scents that accompany her spells, and Selyse is well, Selyse the follower/steward/agent.

Soooo, if Daenerys is told to beware the perfumed seneschal- which literally translates to fragrant steward, and the Selaesori Qhoran is called the Stinky Steward, which translates to Queen Selyse, then by reason of foreshadowing () Jon should avoid Queen Selyse because she will bring destruction on him??? Got it!

...HOLD THE CAN OF WORMS....

Wasn't little Dany followed by hired knives as a child? Well, who hired the knives at Castle Black for the mutiny to kill the boy? Remember, half of the stabbers were acting weird and crying and saying, "not me."

Were they under a spell? Hired? By whom?

 

[Leonardo]

Came in here to reference fat pink mast. 

 

Author did it first.

 

Well done.