Think I found a little bird

[John Suburbs]

14 hours ago, Seams said:

I think "solemn" is a "lemons" clue. Associated with Targaryens, imho.

Lol. Brilliant. You might have something there.

[John Suburbs]

12 hours ago, Lollygag said:

Nice catch on the name. I do lean towards her being Tywin's bastard, but more so with an unnamed whore especially if Tywin was the Hand who created the passage. The red and gold glass windows make me lean that way. 

ACOK Tyrion VII

As the black-skinned girl led him up the stairs, she said, "Poor Dancy. She has a fortnight to get my lord to choose her. Elsewise she loses her black pearls to Marei." 

Marei was a cool, pale, delicate girl Tyrion had noticed once or twice. Green eyes and porcelain skin, long straight silvery hair, very lovely, but too solemn by half. "I'd hate to have the poor child lose her pearls on account of me." 

 

Marei has green eyes, and like Tywin who never smiles, is too solemn. Here, we see she's also ambitious and competitive (pearls) and (Lann the) clever as she's teaching others to read. Tywin is often described as cool or cold. We also have Tyrion and Marei placed in competition with each other which is a very Lannister thing.

Also, if Tywin had an affair with a Targ-looking woman, that would play into his weird Targ fascination and wish for their houses to be joined. 

 

 

Adding because I forgot:
Lannisters tend to have dual/twin natures. Tywin never smiled but Joanna was his smile. When Tywin died (reunited with Joanna again), he smiled. We were introduced to Jaime (laughing joking) and Cersei (dour, taking everything seriously) as two halves. There was Joff (violent, cruel) and Myrcella/Tommen (opposite Joff in about every way). Tyrion has two eye colors, hair colors and is twisted/mashed together, two people in himself. With Marei, we have Dancy in competition for the pearls making them a pair of sorts. 

"Next time, perhaps." Tyrion had no doubt that Dancy would be a lively handful. She was pug-nosed and bouncy, with freckles and a mane of thick red hair that tumbled down past her waist. But he had Shae waiting for him at the manse. 

Notice where Marei is clever, cool, solemn, Dancy is fiery, lively, playful, and doesn't seem as smart.

 

And mayhaps Marie is even more clever than we suspect if she happens to know about the secret passage and that Tyrion is using it, making it all but certain that she'll win Dancy's pearls?

[Lollygag]

2 hours ago, John Suburbs said:

And mayhaps Marie is even more clever than we suspect if she happens to know about the secret passage and that Tyrion is using it, making it all but certain that she'll win Dancy's pearls?

I've been of mind for a long time that the crowd at Chataya's was going to factor in the future storyline in a big way. There's just so, so much detail and characterization packed into such a small amount content and not just with Marei. Can't say how, but hoping for a stronger Summer Islander presence in the story as they seem really interesting and it's weird to have so much Winter and so few Summer Islanders to balance it out!

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Those black pearls stick out to me for some reason. They're extremely rare and are connected to wealth and prosperity (more Lannister stuff here). Seems cultures around the world consistently associated them with tears. 

https://bellatory.com/fashion-accessories/pearl-myth

Early Chinese civilization considered black pearls a symbol of wisdom and believed they were formed within a dragon's head. Once full-grown, the pearls were carried between the dragon's teeth. According to this myth, one had to slay the dragon to gather the pearls. The ancient Japanese believed that pearls were created from the tears of mythical creatures, such as mermaids, nymphs, and angels.
 

This particular passage is especially interesting. Trying to move away from the Jack Sparrow association here, maybe think pearly whites, or teeth? Dragon teeth are black. Marei and Dancy are fighting for black pearls and Tyrion and all of his dragon stuff is the decider of who gets them. 

 

[CAllDSmith]

2 hours ago, John Suburbs said:

That's the best information we have. She can't be much older than Shae because a) the shelf-life of a whore is not that long, and mid-20s was considered fairly old in a feudal society, and b) if she was significantly older than Shae then Tyrion would not make that comparison -- it would be like him saying Septa Lemore is older than Shae as well.

The mid-20's being fairly old in feudal society is a myth. And while GRRM does make several myths real as part of his story telling, that is obviously not one of them considering characters such as Jon Arryn, Barristan Selmy, Bonifer Hasty, the blacksmith at Harrenhal, Hoster Tully, and also the general lack of mention on ages for men and women unless they are particularly young or particularly old. (Even Tyrion Lannister, who many imagine as being Peter Dinklage age is actually only 25 at the start of the series.) The chapter where he compares Shae in age to Marei simply states she is younger. that does not mean we can assume that Marei isn't closer to thirty than twenty. There's certainly examples of older sex workers both in the setting and IRL history. (interestingly enough prostitution was a major topic of discussion in my NT course today due to Philemon) 

[John Suburbs]

20 hours ago, CAllDSmith said:

The mid-20's being fairly old in feudal society is a myth. And while GRRM does make several myths real as part of his story telling, that is obviously not one of them considering characters such as Jon Arryn, Barristan Selmy, Bonifer Hasty, the blacksmith at Harrenhal, Hoster Tully, and also the general lack of mention on ages for men and women unless they are particularly young or particularly old. (Even Tyrion Lannister, who many imagine as being Peter Dinklage age is actually only 25 at the start of the series.) The chapter where he compares Shae in age to Marei simply states she is younger. that does not mean we can assume that Marei isn't closer to thirty than twenty. There's certainly examples of older sex workers both in the setting and IRL history. (interestingly enough prostitution was a major topic of discussion in my NT course today due to Philemon) 

Yes, there are older prostitutes, but Chataya's is one of the most upscale brothels in the capital. King Robert was a client. It stands to reason that mid-20s would be about the upper limit for a whore at Chataya's. After that, she would have to find work at a lesser establishment or find some other way to support herself. Based on Tyrion's description, then, the most reasonable assumption is that Marei is maybe a year or two older than Shae, so early 20s at best.

Life expectancy during the Roman Empire was 25 years. In medieval Europe it climbed to 33. These numbers are somewhat skewed, however, because they factor in the high infant mortality rate of those times. If someone managed to reach the age of 20, they could expect to live another 30 years or so. But even at age 30, they would be considered old.

So in Martin's world, most of the characters we see up close are highborn or commoners who work for highborns and thus have access to the best food, housing and medical care, plus they are not doing risky or strenuous work like farming, mining or seafaring, so they would naturally have a longer lifespan on average. This is in perfect keeping with real history. If Martin were to give us a realistic depiction of life out in the country, however, a person over 40 would be considered rather old. And a 30-year-old prostitute in a classy place like Chataya's would be constantly passed over in favor of all the younger women.

[CAllDSmith]

1 hour ago, John Suburbs said:

Life expectancy during the Roman Empire was 25 years. In medieval Europe it climbed to 33. These numbers are somewhat skewed, however, because they factor in the high infant mortality rate of those times. If someone managed to reach the age of 20, they could expect to live another 30 years or so. But even at age 30, they would be considered old.

So in Martin's world, most of the characters we see up close are highborn or commoners who work for highborns and thus have access to the best food, housing and medical care, plus they are not doing risky or strenuous work like farming, mining or seafaring, so they would naturally have a longer lifespan on average. This is in perfect keeping with real history. If Martin were to give us a realistic depiction of life out in the country, however, a person over 40 would be considered rather old. And a 30-year-old prostitute in a classy place like Chataya's would be constantly passed over in favor of all the younger women.

While you are right about the life expectancy versus maximum lifespan difference (to which I was referring.) Your interpretation of the facts in the rest of the first paragraph is false. They would not have been considered old simply for reaching thirty, especially since adulthood for men started at about 21 (The age a man is fully enough developed to wear full plate armor.) Adulthood and age of majority are also two different things, once you reach adulthood you typically don't have to say things like "I'm a grown man now I can make my own decisions." 

There are multiple issues with the statement that someone in their thirties would be considered old both in the context of Westeros and in the real world. Someone who is twenty is considered old by someone who is three, but someone who is forty is not considered old by someone who is twenty-three. Sure, someone who is thirty-three might have been considered old, by the infant about to die of lack of medicine, but not by the average population. Another issue is that we're using unsure statistics from periods that are either a thousand, or five hundred years distant from the type of society Westeros is (Roughly Westeros corresponds with late fourteen hundreds, post-Black Death Europe without gun powder.) One of the ways we know that people in their thirties wouldn't be considered old is that the phenomenon of marrying women at 13 (when they typically would get their first period) is only true of the upper class nobility both because the upper class nobility would fatten up their young daughters to bring their daughters' periods on earlier and that other social classes did not have access to the food and nutrients needed to copy that process. We are now learning that women and men who were peasants probably married in their late teens-early twenties and could for the most part expect to live long enough for their children to be adults before they died. 

The song of ice and fire core rulebook actually divides the age groups fairly accurately, placing old at 50 and middle-aged at thirty-one. 

Within the series we also have a pretty good idea of who is considered old based on the POVS. Of the 24 POV characters we have an age range from 8-64 and of those characters only one is ever called old, despite Davos being at least mid-forties if not older. Which is significant considering the conditions and diet Davos was taking part in during those forty-plus years since he was from Flea Bottom. 

Another significant detail from these POVs is the women. All of them are sexualized by the other characters with Dany probably being the most sexualized, Cersei is certainly second. Considering the amount of idiots willing to kill kings, gods and other people for the chance to fuck Cersei, obviously there are people willing to pay money to have sex with women over the age of 25. There's also courtesans to be considered, the first Black Pearl was well established and had had at least three children by the time she became a courtesan meaning she was probably in her thirties, Saera Targaryen was powerful in Volantis at 34 with three grown sons, the Black Swann was having men kill for her favor at the age of 35, and the Sailor's Wife is marrying three or four men a night at the age of at least 28. What this tells us is that not everyone who goes buying a whore is an ephebophile. Tyrion (whose three lust objects are 13, 18, and 14 respectively) even considers Cersei and Cat attractive enough to bed. Combine this knowledge with the fact that silver-haired whores are certainly having an economic boom thanks to Dany (Considering the Cinnamon Winds's travel path people who have either seen or know of the existence of a new dragon queen are certainly making port in King's Landing fairly often now.) and I would say Marei is probably pulling in a good bit of business. 

All of this age speculation does leave out the most important issue. Marei knows how to read. 

[chrisdaw]

Those whores are a little foreshadowing triangle. Merei is Euron and Dancy is Dany. The black pearls the two have bet Dancy's ability to get her lord (Tyrion) to sleep with her over refer to Drogon.

Dancy looks like Ygritte

Quote

"Next time, perhaps." Tyrion had no doubt that Dancy would be a lively handful. She was pug-nosed and bouncy, with freckles and a mane of thick red hair that tumbled down past her waist. But he had Shae waiting for him at the manse.

and her description references Jon/Lyanna in the manner of Dany's HOTU vision.

Quote

The freckled one wore a chain of blue flowers in her honeyed hair.

Quote

A blue flower grew from a chink in a wall of ice, and filled the air with sweetness.

The way it fits together is that Dany is going to find herself in the same position as Dancy. Euron is going "take" Drogon, and Dany is going to have to sleep with her lord (Jon) in order to get him back. Dancy is named for Dany but looks like Ygritte because Dany is going to glamour as Ygritte to get Jon to sleep with her.

[John Suburbs]

21 hours ago, CAllDSmith said:

While you are right about the life expectancy versus maximum lifespan difference (to which I was referring.) Your interpretation of the facts in the rest of the first paragraph is false. They would not have been considered old simply for reaching thirty, especially since adulthood for men started at about 21 (The age a man is fully enough developed to wear full plate armor.) Adulthood and age of majority are also two different things, once you reach adulthood you typically don't have to say things like "I'm a grown man now I can make my own decisions." 

There are multiple issues with the statement that someone in their thirties would be considered old both in the context of Westeros and in the real world. Someone who is twenty is considered old by someone who is three, but someone who is forty is not considered old by someone who is twenty-three. Sure, someone who is thirty-three might have been considered old, by the infant about to die of lack of medicine, but not by the average population. Another issue is that we're using unsure statistics from periods that are either a thousand, or five hundred years distant from the type of society Westeros is (Roughly Westeros corresponds with late fourteen hundreds, post-Black Death Europe without gun powder.) One of the ways we know that people in their thirties wouldn't be considered old is that the phenomenon of marrying women at 13 (when they typically would get their first period) is only true of the upper class nobility both because the upper class nobility would fatten up their young daughters to bring their daughters' periods on earlier and that other social classes did not have access to the food and nutrients needed to copy that process. We are now learning that women and men who were peasants probably married in their late teens-early twenties and could for the most part expect to live long enough for their children to be adults before they died. 

The song of ice and fire core rulebook actually divides the age groups fairly accurately, placing old at 50 and middle-aged at thirty-one. 

Within the series we also have a pretty good idea of who is considered old based on the POVS. Of the 24 POV characters we have an age range from 8-64 and of those characters only one is ever called old, despite Davos being at least mid-forties if not older. Which is significant considering the conditions and diet Davos was taking part in during those forty-plus years since he was from Flea Bottom. 

Another significant detail from these POVs is the women. All of them are sexualized by the other characters with Dany probably being the most sexualized, Cersei is certainly second. Considering the amount of idiots willing to kill kings, gods and other people for the chance to fuck Cersei, obviously there are people willing to pay money to have sex with women over the age of 25. There's also courtesans to be considered, the first Black Pearl was well established and had had at least three children by the time she became a courtesan meaning she was probably in her thirties, Saera Targaryen was powerful in Volantis at 34 with three grown sons, the Black Swann was having men kill for her favor at the age of 35, and the Sailor's Wife is marrying three or four men a night at the age of at least 28. What this tells us is that not everyone who goes buying a whore is an ephebophile. Tyrion (whose three lust objects are 13, 18, and 14 respectively) even considers Cersei and Cat attractive enough to bed. Combine this knowledge with the fact that silver-haired whores are certainly having an economic boom thanks to Dany (Considering the Cinnamon Winds's travel path people who have either seen or know of the existence of a new dragon queen are certainly making port in King's Landing fairly often now.) and I would say Marei is probably pulling in a good bit of business. 

All of this age speculation does leave out the most important issue. Marei knows how to read. 

The point remains the same: Marei is only a few years older than Shae, otherwise Tyrion would not have made that particular comparison. So therefore Tywin Lannister could not have built the secret passage way back when he was hand nearly 20 years ago because at best Marie would have been a little baby. Even if she is 30 now, she would only have been 10 back then, and I think we can both agree that Tywin is not a pedophile. To make it even remotely plausible, she would have to be at least 35, and that simply blows all the facts out of the water: that Tyrion would use Shae, an 18yo, to compare Marei's age, and that Marei would still be at one of the highest-class brothels at her age. Yes, older women are still attractive to bed and top courtesans still have powerful clients, but this is mostly due to reputation, not raw sexual appeal. The whole point of Cersei's walk of shame was to show that she is not all that beautiful once shorn of her hair and stripped of her fancy clothes. The crowd actually makes fun of how saggy she is. The Sailor's Wife is a whore in a dockside brothel, not one of the top earners in a house visited by kings.

So, sorry, but no: the passage was not built to bring Tywin and Marei together. But it might have brought Tywin and Marei's Targaryen mother together.

[CAllDSmith]

32 minutes ago, John Suburbs said:

So, sorry, but no: the passage was not built to bring Tywin and Marei together. But it might have brought Tywin and Marei's Targaryen mother together.

I never suggested that the passage was built to connect Tywin to Marei, only that Tywin used the connection and that Marei was how Varys knew about it/ a possible lover of Tywin. The main issue is still that Marei seems to be a likely agent for Varys. 

[John Suburbs]

14 minutes ago, CAllDSmith said:

I never suggested that the passage was built to connect Tywin to Marei, only that Tywin used the connection and that Marei was how Varys knew about it/ a possible lover of Tywin. The main issue is still that Marei seems to be a likely agent for Varys. 

Sorry, was this not you?

On 3/29/2019 at 5:02 PM, CAllDSmith said:

Marei is one of Varys spies and a little bird, which is why she knows how to read and seems to be of some influence within the brothel. She's possibly one of the ones who came over from Essos since we never hear her speak. She also might have been Tywin's lover at some point because that could be a way that Varys knew about the passage. Finally, I would also like to put forward that Dancy was possibly a spy for Littlefinger. 

[CAllDSmith]

Just now, John Suburbs said:

Sorry, was this not you?

I never suggested that Tywin had the tunnel built. (I'm thinking it might have been more of a Maegor thing.) The Marei/Tywin thing was more of a guess, but my big thing I'm trying to get across is that Marei being able to read is weird, Orwyle causes us to notice that and that Marei is probably a Varys spy hidden in the background. Not for any big reveal, just that there is a theme throughout Tyrion's chapters of the subtle hints at the game being played in the shadows.

[John Suburbs]

23 hours ago, CAllDSmith said:

I never suggested that Tywin had the tunnel built. (I'm thinking it might have been more of a Maegor thing.) The Marei/Tywin thing was more of a guess, but my big thing I'm trying to get across is that Marei being able to read is weird, Orwyle causes us to notice that and that Marei is probably a Varys spy hidden in the background. Not for any big reveal, just that there is a theme throughout Tyrion's chapters of the subtle hints at the game being played in the shadows.

OK, but the reason I brought up Marei's age was to counter the idea that she could have been Tywin's lover as suggested in the OP. Simply not possible.

I doubt the tunnel dates back to Maegor. King's Landing was little more than a shanty town in Maegor's time and Chataya's is a fairly impressive building: stone first floor and a turret no less. Mayhaps it was a defensive building back then, but then there would be no reason for a Hand to build a secret entrance. And if Varys' account is to be believed, it was dug specifically for a Hand who wanted secret access to the brothel.

Yeah, I get the reading thing. That's pretty odd. But I think we need more than just that to connect it to Varys as opposed to anyone else. She could very well have been born to a wealthy Volantene family who somehow disgraced herself and chose to flee rather than face punishment. It's happened before. If she is a spy, I still see Littlefinger's MO on this more than Varys', but then again, I also suspect that LF is also working for or with Illyrio, so in the end it would make no difference: they all work for the pox-ridden Pentoshi cheesemonger.

[Corvo the Crow]

On ‎3‎/‎30‎/‎2019 at 9:14 PM, CAllDSmith said:

A House that has been extinct for over two hundred years is not even worth considering as a theory. 

Houses that die on the main branch don't exactly die out. There are (or could be) Starks in Barrowton and Whiteharbor. Arryns will die on the "main" line if Robyn dies without a child but there are Arryn cadets throughout the Vale. Even not so major houses such as Toletts have cadets, Dolorous Edd being from one such branch, being slightly above(in wealth, possessions etc) from most commoners.

 

On ‎3‎/‎30‎/‎2019 at 9:14 PM, CAllDSmith said:

Obscure as in there is no evidence for their existence? Especially since it's explicitly stated only T,V,C and Baratheon are descended from Valyria?

Would like to see this explicit statement as I can't recall anything stating that these are the only houses of Valyrian descent.

 

On ‎3‎/‎30‎/‎2019 at 9:14 PM, CAllDSmith said:

Also their hair and eyes are obviously recessive traits that only continued due to inbreeding. Valyrian commoners most likely don't have the hair anymore.

House Dayne has the same eyes and hair in some members and they are doing a good job preserving it, do they inbreed as well? 

 

On ‎3‎/‎30‎/‎2019 at 9:14 PM, CAllDSmith said:

This doesn't even make sense. 

Lynesse, though not given hair and eye color, at least not that I recall, looks like Danaerys, and had very pale skin.

Tywin died at 58, Cersei is 34, Mace, whose hair is still mostly Brown, is closer to Cersei in age than to Tywin, so younger than 46. His Wife, Alerie HIGHTOWER, is younger than him and has Silver hair.

 

On ‎3‎/‎30‎/‎2019 at 9:14 PM, CAllDSmith said:

Apparently all old men are Targaryens now?

Old men have grey hair, or salt and pepper hair, not silver hair. Search the words silver and hair and you'll see. Few people in westeros besides Velaryons, Daynes etc that are mentioned to have silver hair are, Alerie, LF who got a streak of it in his Brown hair as he aged, but he's descended from Braavosi and some Braavosi are descended from Valyrians. Oberyn, who had streaks of silver in his black hair, though he had some Targaryen ancestors. So we have two people mentioned to have streaks of silver, not grey as they have aged but one of them had Valyrian ancestors and the other is from Braavos, which has Valyrian descendants we also have another, wh doesn't have streaks of silver, but silver hair, despite being not old.

 

 

I think now you can see that not all silvers are from houses Targaryen or Velaryon, or even of "pure"  Valyrian descent.