Penny's Gift

[John Suburbs]

@Megorova and I were having a discussion in another thread that I thought I'd open up to the board. It start's with this quite from Penny to Tyrion:

Quote

"We performed for the Sealord of Braavos once, and he laughed so hard that afterward he gave each of us a . . . a grand gift"

So the question is, what kind of gift could the SoB (har!) have given to Oppo and Penny all those years ago that she does not want to reveal to Tyrion now?

Meg is certain it is either one or all three of the dragon eggs that Alyssa Farman brought to Braavos way back when, and you all are welcome to continue that argument with her (? or him?), but I tend to doubt it. For the life of me, though, I cannot think of anything that she would want to keep secret from Tyrion, even if it was a dragon egg.

Any ideas?

[OtherFromAnotherMother]

6 minutes ago, John Suburbs said:

@Megorova and I were having a discussion in another thread that I thought I'd open up to the board. It start's with this quite from Penny to Tyrion:

So the question is, what kind of gift could the SoB (har!) have given to Oppo and Penny all those years ago that she does not want to reveal to Tyrion now?

Meg is certain it is either one or all three of the dragon eggs that Alyssa Farman brought to Braavos way back when, and you all are welcome to continue that argument with her (? or him?), but I tend to doubt it. For the life of me, though, I cannot think of anything that she would want to keep secret from Tyrion, even if it was a dragon egg.

Any ideas?

George and his use of elipses... The frustration continues! @ravenous readerand others know the struggle is real.

I would more easily believe this 'grand gift' was nothing of significance if not for the elipses. What the gift was though, I have no idea. But I do think George is wanting the reader to take note. Good catch!

I followed the thread between you and @Megorova and I completely agree that the gift of three dragon eggs seems extremely unlikely.

[chrisdaw]

The use of a prostitute?

[Roswell]

23 minutes ago, John Suburbs said:

@Megorova and I were having a discussion in another thread that I thought I'd open up to the board. It start's with this quite from Penny to Tyrion:

So the question is, what kind of gift could the SoB (har!) have given to Oppo and Penny all those years ago that she does not want to reveal to Tyrion now?

Meg is certain it is either one or all three of the dragon eggs that Alyssa Farman brought to Braavos way back when, and you all are welcome to continue that argument with her (? or him?), but I tend to doubt it. For the life of me, though, I cannot think of anything that she would want to keep secret from Tyrion, even if it was a dragon egg.

Any ideas?

There is grand and well, there is GRAND.  The Sealord is not going to give a dragon egg to actors.  They are too valuable.  That's silly.

Just now, chrisdaw said:

The use of a prostitute?

This is more like it.  Professional service for each of them.  That is why she was embarrassed to reveal it.  

[Platypus Rex]

1 hour ago, John Suburbs said:

@Megorova and I were having a discussion in another thread that I thought I'd open up to the board. It start's with this quite from Penny to Tyrion:

So the question is, what kind of gift could the SoB (har!) have given to Oppo and Penny all those years ago that she does not want to reveal to Tyrion now?

Meg is certain it is either one or all three of the dragon eggs that Alyssa Farman brought to Braavos way back when, and you all are welcome to continue that argument with her (? or him?), but I tend to doubt it. For the life of me, though, I cannot think of anything that she would want to keep secret from Tyrion, even if it was a dragon egg.

Any ideas?

Umm.  Gosh.  I dunno.

A secret map with an x marking "where whores go"?  She probably would not want Tyrion to see that. 

In any event, I think it's a bit late in the story for the hatching of new dragons.

[Seams]

If GRRM alludes to the word "agg" with all of his use of daggers and ragged people, this is pretty close to the Swedish and/or Danish words for egg. When Penny mentions "A Grand Gift," this may be our hint that the Sealord gave her and Groat a pair of dragon's eggs.

We discussed this briefly a year ago.

Since then, my thoughts about Petyr Baelish have evolved and expanded. All of the references to Littlefinger knowing how to rub two dragons together to make three have led me to look for comparisons of coins or gold and dragons or dragons' eggs. The grand gifts to Penny and Groat that I thought might be dragon's eggs might be something closer to the coins known as gold dragons. It's possible that Penny might hide lots of gold dragons from Tyrion by using that ellipses and becoming vague about the nature of the gift.

Still, I like the literal dragon eggs. It fits with other things I see in Penny and her role in Tyrion's story, and would also be perfect for my cherished secret Targ notion about Littlefinger if the eggs had been bought or stolen by Petyr Baelish.

Edit: I found my earlier notes about Penny possibly receiving dragon eggs, and how Petyr Baelish may have gotten them from Groat:

And toward the bottom of this comment:

fwiw.

 

[Lord Lannister]

Penny would think a fancy new saddle for her pig is grand.

[Megorova]

Your post from that other thread:

14 hours ago, John Suburbs said:

Sorry, there's just too many holes. If Hop-Bean belonged to his troupe, then the eggs would rightly belong to whomever owned the troupe. So there is no reason he should be granted anything in return for the eggs.

But this is contradicting his story. See? ->

https://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Hop-Bean

"Hop-Bean’s father sold him to a slaver when he was three, but he grew up to be such a famous mummer that he was able to buy his freedom."

He bought his freedom, even though he was a slave, and thus, supposedly, everything he owned, actually belonged to his master/s. Thus, if that is the way it was, then there's no way, how he could have bought his freedom. Nevertheless, he did. Curious contradiction, don't you agree?

14 hours ago, John Suburbs said:

So the question is, what kind of gift could the SoB (har!) have given to Oppo and Penny all those years ago

"Penny did not seem to hear that. "It was Father's idea to do the tilts. He even trained the first pig, but by then he was too sick to ride her, so Oppo took his place. I always rode the dog. We performed for the Sealord of Braavos once, and he laughed so hard that afterward he gave each of us a … a grand gift."

"Is that where my sister found you? In Braavos?"

"Your sister?" The girl looked lost.

"Queen Cersei."

Penny shook her head. "She never … it was a man who came to us, in Pentos. Osmund. No, Oswald. Something like that. Oppo met with him, not me. Oppo made all of our arrangements. My brother always knew what to do, where we should go next." "

 

First - even though the father was too sick to ride the pig, it doesn't mean, that he didn't participated at all. Thus, he also got the same thing, as his kids. Or he was given his grand gift for planning the show, not for participation (in case, if he didn't participated).

Second - LF's agent has found Oppo and Penny in Pentos. Years ago Illyrio was magister of Pentos. So it's possible, that after they were given three dragon eggs in Braavos, after that they went to Pentos, where they gave those eggs to Illyrio.

13 hours ago, The Transporter said:

The Sealord is not going to give a dragon egg to actors.  They are too valuable.  That's silly.

Aegon IV has given dragon egg to Butterwell in exchange for sex with his three daughters.

Butterwell himself was going to give that egg away, to whoever would have won in the tournament at Whitewalls, and it wasn't even some major tournament, none of the Great Houses were present there.

So it's not like that sort of "silly" thing haven't happened before.

And if you haven't read The Mystery Knight - in the end Dunk has guessed, that the dragon egg from Whitewalls was stolen by mummer-dwarfs, on Bloodraven's order.

So then the egg was stolen by dwarfs, and now the three eggs were gifted to dwarfs.

It's not like this theory is completely out of the blue. I'm basing it on text in the books.

[John Suburbs]

15 hours ago, chrisdaw said:

The use of a prostitute?

I considered that, although, this being the sealord, it would be more of a courtesan. That would work for Oppo, but Penny? She seems rather inexperienced, and I haven't heard tell of male courtesans in Braavos -- at least, ones that cater to women. But I suppose anything is possible.

[John Suburbs]

10 hours ago, Lord Lannister said:

Penny would think a fancy new saddle for her pig is grand.

Yes, but why would she be hesitant to tell Tyrion about something as mundane as a saddle?

[Lord Lannister]

1 minute ago, John Suburbs said:

Yes, but why would she be hesitant to tell Tyrion about something as mundane as a saddle?

She's one who appreciates the mundane things. She'd have no reason to want to open herself up to one of his mocking japes over something that may have meant a great deal to her but didn't mean much in the grand scheme of things.

[John Suburbs]

2 hours ago, Megorova said:

Your post from that other thread:

But this is contradicting his story. See? ->

https://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Hop-Bean

"Hop-Bean’s father sold him to a slaver when he was three, but he grew up to be such a famous mummer that he was able to buy his freedom."

He bought his freedom, even though he was a slave, and thus, supposedly, everything he owned, actually belonged to his master/s. Thus, if that is the way it was, then there's no way, how he could have bought his freedom. Nevertheless, he did. Curious contradiction, don't you agree?

I agree. It's curiouser and curiouser. This is why I cannot flatly reject your theory, just that I have serious doubts because of its many holes. If I could think of anything that would cause Penny to think twice about revealing to Tyrion, I would say it was case closed. But I can't, so for my own purposes I'll shelve this one under "possible, but extremely low probability."

But I'll provide a little fuel to your theory here: mayhaps Illyrio was the owner from whom Hop-Bean purchased his freedom?

[John Suburbs]

4 minutes ago, Lord Lannister said:

She's one who appreciates the mundane things. She'd have no reason to want to open herself up to one of his mocking japes over something that may have meant a great deal to her but didn't mean much in the grand scheme of things.

Yeah, I suppose. That would be kind of a let down, though, and completely superfluous to the story. I tend to think that Martin only throws out these little teasers for things that really matter.

[Lord Lannister]

1 minute ago, John Suburbs said:

Yeah, I suppose. That would be kind of a let down, though, and completely superfluous to the story. I tend to think that Martin only throws out these little teasers for things that really matter.

Maybe. I tend to think the whole Penny arc is superfluous. Perhaps if she manages to get Tyrion giving a damn about the world again it'll be worth it.

[Darth Sidious]

1 hour ago, Lord Lannister said:

She's one who appreciates the mundane things. She'd have no reason to want to open herself up to one of his mocking japes over something that may have meant a great deal to her but didn't mean much in the grand scheme of things.

The Sealord may have gifted them the pooch and the porker.  Dragon eggs, no way.

[DarkSister1001]

Very interesting!  I tend to think that Penny is hiding something that she thinks Tyrion will make fun of.  If it was gold, he'd snicker bc he's a Lannister of Casterly Rock and they have different notions of what constitutes a lot of gold.

 

[Platypus Rex]

It was Tysha's head on a plate.

[corbon]

On 12/13/2018 at 1:47 AM, Megorova said:

Aegon IV has given dragon egg to Butterwell in exchange for sex with his three daughters.

Aegon the Unworthy is not the best example for what is reasonable.

On 12/13/2018 at 1:47 AM, Megorova said:

Butterwell himself was going to give that egg away, to whoever would have won in the tournament at Whitewalls, and it wasn't even some major tournament, none of the Great Houses were present there.

Butterwell was going to give the egg to Daemon II Blackfyre to kick off the rebellion - the Tourney was totally rigged. I don't think this example supports your case in any way. 

[Here's Looking At You, Kid]

On 12/12/2018 at 5:10 PM, DarkSister1001 said:

Very interesting!  I tend to think that Penny is hiding something that she thinks Tyrion will make fun of.  If it was gold, he'd snicker bc he's a Lannister of Casterly Rock and they have different notions of what constitutes a lot of gold.

 

A golden dragon each?  A lot of money for third-rate entertainers but pocket change for a Lannister.

[Here's Looking At You, Kid]

Why would Penny continue to work if she had a dragon's egg?  She would sell the stone and live like a lady for the rest of her days.  We know she didn't.  She was having to earn a living.