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Valentine's Day special: Flowers or Heads?


rotting sea cow

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The title  of this thread is inspired in Jaime's thoughts
 

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 "Ser Harwyn says those tales are lies." Lady Amerei wound a braid around her finger. "He has promised me Lord Beric's head. He's very gallant." She was blushing beneath her tears.
Jaime thought back on the head he'd given to Pia. He could almost hear his little brother chuckle. Whatever became of giving women flowers? Tyrion might have asked.

AFFC - Jaime IV

 

and indeed, Jaime gave Pia the head of (one of) her rapist(s):
 

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"One of the Mountain's men had tried to rape the girl at Harrenhal, and had seemed honestly perplexed when Jaime commanded Ilyn Payne to take his head off. "I had her before, a hunnerd times," he kept saying as they forced him to his knees. "A hunnerd times, m'lord. We all had her." When Ser Ilyn presented Pia with his head, she had smiled through her ruined teeth."

AFFC - Jaime IV

 

 

But the first instance of giving heads as a token of "love" is in Sansa VI, AGOT, but Joffrey didn't like the rebuke

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 Joffrey gave a petulant shrug. "Your brother defeated my uncle Jaime. My mother says it was treachery and deceit. She wept when she heard. Women are all weak, even her, though she pretends she isn't. She says we need to stay in King's Landing in case my other uncles attack, but I don't care. After my name day feast, I'm going to raise a host and kill your brother myself. That's what I'll give you, Lady Sansa. Your brother's head."
A kind of madness took over her then, and she heard herself say, "Maybe my brother will give me your head."

 


During the weeding of "Ayra" and Ramsay, Roose laments that his bastard son cannot give Stannis head as a weeding gift although I'm sure that poor Jeyne (like Sansa) would marry any man who gift her the head of her abuser

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The bride had the place of highest honor, between Ramsay and his father. She sat with eyes downcast as Roose Bolton bid them drink to Lady Arya. "In her children our two ancient houses will become as one," he said, "and the long enmity between Stark and Bolton will be ended." His voice was so soft that the hall grew hushed as men strained to hear. "I am sorry that our good friend Stannis has not seen fit to join us yet," he went on, to a ripple of laughter, "as I know Ramsay had hoped to present his head to Lady Arya as a wedding gift." The laughs grew louder. "We shall give him a splendid welcome when he arrives, a welcome worthy of true northmen. Until that day, let us eat and drink and make merry … for winter is almost upon us, my friends, and many of us here shall not live to see the spring."

ADWD - The Prince of Winterfell

 

 

And of course Daario giving the heads of his former mates to Daenerys (he gave her also flowers later)

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"Khaleesi," he cried, "I bring gifts and glad tidings. The Stormcrows are yours." A golden tooth gleamed in his mouth when he smiled. "And so is Daario Naharis!"
Dany was dubious. If this Tyroshi had come to spy, this declaration might be no more than a desperate plot to save his head. "What do Prendahl na Ghezn and Sallor say of this?"
"Little." Daario upended the sack, and the heads of Sallor the Bald and Prendahl na Ghezn spilled out upon her carpets. "My gifts to the dragon queen."

ASOS - Daenerys IV

 

Is there another instance I'm forgetting?

Which lady in ASOIAF would be happier in this special day with a head instead with flowers? Whose head?

 

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The Martell family celebrates with a feast upon the arrival of the large skull, presumably belonging to Gregor Clegane. Dessert is spun sugar skulls. 

"It is the cook's little jape, Ser Balon," said Arianne. "Even death is not sacred to a Dornishman. You won't be cross with us, I pray?" 

. . . This one is not so easily seduced as was his Sworn Brother, Hotah thought.

(ADwD, Chap. 38, The Watcher)

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This may also be related:

Ser Ilyn's appointment had been a wedding gift from Robert Baratheon to the father of his bride, a sinecure to compensate Payne for the tongue he'd lost in the service of House Lannister. (AFfC, Jaime III)

Ser Ilyn's appointment isn't a severed head but something perhaps even more romantic: a full-time job beheading people; the gift that keeps on giving. And Robert gives it to Tywin, it appears. Quite the little bromance. 

The super-romantic Sailor's Wife, who insists on marrying each of her customers, is the one who explains the three-headed statue of Trios in Arya's tour of Braavos. 

For what it's worth, I find that there are frequent connections between melons and heads. (Other fruits relate to other body parts.) So Ser Dontos hitting Sansa over the head with a melon morningstar might be another romantic interlude involving a severed "head".

 

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I found another instance!

Jon musses giving the head of Cregan Karstark as weeding gift to Alys and the Magnar.

 
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Cregan shook his head. Chunks of ice had formed about the tangles in his hair, and clicked together softly when he moved. "Never," he said. "Never, never, never."
I should make his head a wedding gift for Lady Alys and her Magnar, Jon thought, but dare not take the risk. The Night's Watch took no part in the quarrels of the realm; some would say he had already given Stannis too much help. Behead this fool, and they will claim I am killing northmen to give their lands to wildlings. Release him, and he will do his best to rip apart all I've done with Lady Alys and the Magnar. Jon wondered what his father would do, how his uncle might deal with this. But Eddard Stark was dead, Benjen Stark lost in the frozen wilds beyond the Wall. You know nothing, Jon Snow.

A Dance with Dragons - Jon X

 

 

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Fascinating!

This thread is uncovering a definite pattern linking wedding gifts and severed heads. Of course, this triggers my wordplay radar and I can't help wondering whether GRRM is playing with wedding / bedding / beheading? Or maybe the beheading comes first in the trio? Because GRRM's pattern of threes seems to represent death / something magical or mysterious / rebirth, I wonder whether the beheading is the death, the wedding is the mystery (perhaps symbolizing the combining of two bloodlines) and the rebirth is (obviously) a fertility rite intended to lead to a pregnancy?

Just came across this moment of Tyrion thinking about Sansa during Joffrey's wedding feast: "She is nothing if not dutiful, this wife of mine. If he told her that he wished to have her maidenhead tonight, she would suffer that dutifully as well, and weep no more than she had to." So maybe the point is that the bedding IS the beheading. That might make sense. The literal birth is the third part of the trio. This could help to analyze the other beheading references associated with weddings: who wants to take (or give) whose maidenhead to whom?

This may be related: at Dany's wedding feast, the reader is told that a Dothraki wedding celebration is not considered to be successful unless there are a couple of deaths during the party. A fight occurs at Dany's feast between two warriors in conflict over who gets to have sex with a particular woman. If you read between the lines, the details surrounding the fight could be a mummer's version of the fight between Rhaegar and Robert at the Ruby Ford. (Interestingly, the woman survives unharmed and the warrior who survives forgets about her and moves on to another woman.)

Of course, the Frey bridge over the Green Fork of the Trident allows people to cross to The Neck. If Lord Walder denies you the right to cross, does that represent a beheading? We know what happens at the wedding feast hosted by Lord Walder.

Oo! Oo! This, too:

Lord Mace Tyrell came forward to present his gift: a golden chalice three feet tall with two ornate curved handles and seven faces glittering with gemstones. "Seven faces for Your Grace's seven kingdoms," the bride's father explained. He showed them how each face bore the sigil of one of the great houses: ruby lion, emerald rose, onyx stag, silver trout, blue jade falcon, opal sun, and pearl direwolf.

"A splendid cup," said Joffrey, "but we'll need to chip the wolf off and put a squid in its place, I think."

Sansa pretended that she had not heard.

"Margaery and I shall drink deep at the feast, good father." Joffrey lifted the chalice above his head for everyone to admire.

"The damned thing's as tall as I am," Tyrion muttered in a low voice. "Half a chalice and Joff will be falling down drunk."

Good, she thought. Perhaps he'll break his neck.

(ASoS, Sansa IV)

Joffrey wants to behead the chalice - remove the direwolf head. Tyrion compares the chalice to himself and then uses the phrase "half a chalice". This is one of GRRM's deft uses of words to say one thing but allude to another: the words could be an indirect way of saying that Joffrey will fall (and break his neck, Sansa hopes) if the chalice is "beheaded".

Don't you know, a dwarf is beheaded at the wedding feast of Joffrey and Margaery:

As the lords and ladies guffawed and giggled, the little men came together with a crash and a clatter, and the wolf knight's lance struck the helm of the stag knight and knocked his head clean off. It spun through the air spattering blood to land in the lap of Lord Gyles. The headless dwarf careened around the tables, flailing his his arms Dogs barked, women shrieked, and Moon Boy made a great show of swaying perilously back and forth on his stilts, until Lord Gyles pulled a dripping red melon out of the shattered helm, at which point the stag knight poked his face up out of his armor, and another storm of laughter rocked the hall.

(ASoS, Tyrion VIII, Chap. 60)

Lord Gyles Rosby seems like one of those allegorical characters whose purpose is to symbolize something but not necessarily to play an active role in driving the plot. He is valuable (his land provides food for King's Landing), he is linked to the Stokeworths (also important allegorical characters), his presence helps Cersei to keep the Tyrells from gaining another seat on the small council. Tyrion displaces him from his rooms at the Red Keep, and he is present at important moments associated with Tyrion such as Tyrion's response to Robb Stark's treaty offer, Tyrion and Sansa's wedding, and Tyrion's trial after Joffrey's death. Ser Gyles succeeds Tyrion as Master of Coin and dies soon after Tyrion leaves King's Landing. I suspect the "bloody" melon head landing in the lap of Ser Gyles represents the beheading of Tyrion (who compared himself to Joffrey's chalice). We know that Tyrion will be reborn as the other jouster in Penny's act after her brother, Groat, is killed as a result of Cersei's decree seeking the severed head of Tyrion.

Not to get too far off topic, but the name Gyles is associated with the Gardner kings. The allusion to those "Garth Greenhand" kings here, as well as the symbiotic relationship between Ser Gyles and Tyrion, is consistent with the symbolism all through Joffrey's wedding feast: Ser Garlan Tyrell is sympathetic and even kind to Tyrion (Tyrells are also closely associated with Gardner kings) and we have strong reason to believe that the Tyrells were involved in Joffrey's death.

Long story short: the beheading of the dwarf jouster, with the head landing on Ser Gyles, makes possible the symbolic rebirth of Tyrion. We keep hearing about Ser Gyles having no heirs but having a ward, yet we never learn the identity of that ward. I think this is deliberate and symbolic: Tyrion is the heir of Ser Gyles.

Another possible wordplay hint to ponder: the book Joffrey destroys immediately after receiving the cup and the sword is referred to as a tome. I have always assumed that GRRM had put the words, "To me!" in Jon Snow's mouth (when he calls his direwolf, Ghost) as wordplay on the word tome, referring to a big book, but I didn't know why he had done this. If beheadings are associated with weddings, Joffrey's destruction of the valuable tome (about the lives of kings) might symbolize the beheading of Jon Snow or of his direwolf. Of course, this would be consistent with what happened to Robb Stark and Grey Wind at the Red Wedding.

And this raises another interesting beheading tangent (or series of tangents). There are details that seem to match between Jon's direwolf, Ghost, and Ser Ilyn Payne. Both are silent. Both are associated with white / silver. Ghost has red eyes; the pommel of Ser Ilyn's sword has red eyes. Ghost is Jon's sidekick and Ser Ilyn is a Lannister sidekick taken up by Jaime after Tywin's death. Jaime inherits a "tome," the White Book of the King's Guard, when Ser Barristan is kicked out of the King's Guard.

Jon found the white wolf pup after the death of the mother direwolf - I think the direwolf Ghost is the reborn mother direwolf (who, of course, represents Lyanna). Could Ser Ilyn represent the rebirth of Joffrey, in a weird way? We have the dismissal of Ser Barristan, destruction of a tome, the death of a king, the return of Jaime and the liberation of Ser Ilyn from his dungeon cell. I think these things are closely linked - Ser Barristan and Ser Ilyn, along with Renly, are the three strangers in Sansa's first POV. The death of Joffrey and the emergence of Ser Ilyn as a companion for Jaime could be a "kill the boy and let the man be born" situation. It would be fitting if Joffrey's spirit were reborn as the executioner, as Joffrey ordered Ned Stark's beheading (as well as the beheading of Septa Mordane, who I think might be either Lyanna or Ashara or a symbolic version of either of those characters) and the beheadings were carried out by Ser Ilyn. Ned's rule was that the man who passed the sentence should swing the sword; Joffrey becoming Ser Ilyn would be a fitting "second life" for the king who liked to behead people.

Like the birth of the two swords Oathkeeper and Widow's Wail out of (we assume) the single sword Ice, the beheading symbolism at Joffrey's wedding ceremony may lead to the rebirth of both Ser Ilyn (as Jaime's direwolf) and Tyrion.

P.S. I bet we could also apply this wedding / beheading imagery to analysis of Cersei's return to the Red Keep, being wrapped in a cloak after he naked walk of shame and the presentation of the headless Ser Robert Strong as her champion. What does it mean that Qyburn, the same man who saved Jaime after his arm was amputated, is also the man who gives Cersei the "wedding present" of the headless champion?

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On 2/14/2019 at 6:25 AM, rotting sea cow said:

Which lady in ASOIAF would be happier in this special day with a head instead with flowers? Whose head?

  1. Jon was happy with Janos Slynt's head.  Jon is a moody woman often times.  Samwell wears the pants in this pair.
  2. Stoneheart.  The head of Jaime.
  3. Daenerys.  The head of the Harpy.
  4. Arya.  The head of anybody who sided against the Starks.
  5. Lady Dustin.  Ned's skull to feed to her dogs.
  6. Sansa.  Illyn Payne's.
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From the wiki, a castle called the Whispers:

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History

According to legend, the ancient castle received its name from the whispering heads of the victims of Ser Clarence Crabb, a fabled knight from Crackclaw Point. Whenever Clarence would kill a man—including lords, wizards, knights, pirates, and a king of Duskendale—he would cut off their head and bring it back to his castle to his wife, a woods witch. There, she would kiss the head and bring it back to life. The heads would then talk to each other and give Clarence counsel, creating the whispering sound.[3]

 

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So Unheadz are a thing.  Woods witches can do it with bloodmagic, Qyburn can hack the miracle with McGuyver science, Cold witches have a cheap knockoff version without any frills like a personality, and Thoros did it by being really sad and loyal and poignant and then wishing it into being--the way Stormborn does magic.   It looks like Unheadz aren't copyrighted and anyone can do it.   The mermen may have done Patchface the watery way.  Talking Heads.  Popular in the 80's.    Say, if dead heads can spill secrets, yikes, Marwyn could really get to the bottom of who the Green Harpy is!

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8 hours ago, The Mother of The Others said:

So Unheadz are a thing. 

The metaphor is about cutting off the head of Westeros, though. The chalice given by Mace Tyrell ("heir" of the Gardner kings) to Joffrey represents the realm. The whole digression into Clarence Crabb and the heads at the Whispers is "history" of the unification of Westeros as minor kings are defeated and then brought together in a sort of council under the control of a woods witch and a warrior.

On the map of Westeros, the oversized "head" of the continent is the North, ruled by the Stark family. Joffrey orders Ned beheaded. Then he wants Robb Stark's head, but he wants to present it to Sansa as a wedding gift. Then he wants to chip the direwolf head off of the chalice. Then he wants to take Sansa's maidenhead. The Tyrells would like Sansa to marry their heir (although Sansa pictures married life as involving playing with kittens, not having sex). Tywin wants Tyrion to take Sansa's maidenhead. Then Marillion threatens to take it. The Hound regrets that he didn't take it. Littlefinger wants to use it as bait in a scheme to take over the Vale, the Riverlands and the North.

Sansa has already taken Sweetrobin's (doll's) head and put it on a spike over the gate of her snow castle. Littlefinger's sigil shield with the stone head of the Titan of Braavos may represent the third head for her "three heads of the dragon" (maidenhead, giant and stone or shield - a fascinating combination from the perspective of literary symbolism).

Catelyn sees Ned's skeleton (missing its eyes and sword, she notes) with the head joined to the body by silver wire. After that, Ned's skull and bones disappear. Perhaps similarly, Robb Stark's body is beheaded and his direwolf's head is sewn to the neck. Does this mean that the Frey family still has his head? Bran's neck (spine, actually) has already been broken, so he is a functional head without a fully-operating body. I wonder whether the eagle's attacks on Jon Snow's face and his direwolf's neck are part of this larger effort to take the heads of Starks?

I also wonder what happened to Ned Stark's silver chalice with the direwolf head after the Harvest Feast at Winterfell. Bran was the only one we have seen using that cup and it seemed to by the carrier of a ritual death for him.

Of course, we then have to look at the effort by the Children of the Forest to use the Hammer of Waters to "behead" Westeros by flooding the Neck. The CotF wanted the "head" for themselves. In addition to the chalice as a symbolic body and head, I bet the cutting of trees symbolizes beheading. All those key tree-climbing moments - Bran or his direwolf Summer or Arya or Wex Pyke - represent people getting in touch with their heads. Similarly, the burned heads in the tree trunk at the abandoned wildling village of Whitetree must represent an interesting new twist with the tree apparently ingesting the head of human beings.

But this comes back to Tyrion, oddly enough. After Joffrey dies, Cersei takes up the quest to behead Westeros by offering the reward for the beheading of Tyrion. The description of Tyrion in the early chapters of AGoT makes a point of mentioning his oversized head in relation to his body. I think he embodies Westeros.

Cersei is presented with symbolic, substitute heads of Tyrion, but not the real head she seeks. Then we hear Penny's stories about beheaded dwarfs from a different perspective, including one dismembered dwarf whose body ends up in the mouth of the statue of the god Trios. This is a rebirth image, probably showing that Joff / Cersei will always fail in their desire to behead Westeros. The head will always be reborn.

This thread motivated me to go back and re-read Tyrion's POV about Joffrey's wedding feast (ASoS, Chap. 60) for the eleventy-billionth time. In doing so, I noticed tons of details about Tyrion's angry reaction to Joffrey's efforts to behead the North (Robb Stark, the chalice, Sansa's maidenhead, etc.). Tyrion and Garlan Tyrell and his wife are also making smart remarks during the song about the unnamed heroic son of a king who saved King's Landing during the battle of the Blackwater. The gist of it is that the three of them agreeing that the song is about Tyrion (or that it would be a better song if it was about him). If we accept that Mace Tyrell's gift of the chalice to Joffrey was a symbolic gift of the realm of Westeros, then Garlan Tyrell's friendliness toward Tyrion (the other chalice) may be a shadow effort, acknowledging that Tyrion is the true or better choice to rule Westeros. Perhaps especially with Sansa by his side.

And this doesn't even begin to get into the symbolism of coins, which usually feature the head of a monarch on one side. And the Faceless Men using other people's heads (faces) as disguises.

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