Syrio Forel

[Fun Guy from Yuggoth]

Many people are familiar with the theory that Pate/Jaqen/Alchemist is trying to get a hold of the forbidden/burned books locked in the vault at the Citadel, one of them called Blood and Fire.  And some theorists also propose that Jaqen was Syrio also.  I have a tidbit to add to this.

 

Syrio, from Latin Sīrius, from Ancient Greek Σείριος (Seírios), usually taken from σείριος (seírios, "the scorcher", “scorching; glowing” the star Sirius is described as "flaming, burning").

Forel from Middle English forel (“case, sheath”), A kind of parchment for book covers; a forrill. parchment,

"scorching/flaming/burning book"

In ancient astronomy the star Sirius is sometimes described as being red, sometimes white, and once sea-blue.  Sirius is a face-changer.  Syrio is a face-changer.

 

 

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He was less hopeful concerning Septon Barth's Dragons, Wyrms, and Wyverns: Their Unnatural History. Barth had been a blacksmith's son who rose to be King's Hand during the reign of Jaehaerys the Conciliator. His enemies always claimed he was more sorcerer than septon. Baelor the Blessed had ordered all Barth's writings destroyed when he came to the Iron Throne. Ten years ago, Tyrion had read a fragment of Unnatural History that had eluded the Blessed Baelor, but he doubted that any of Barth's work had found its way across the narrow sea. And of course there was even less chance of his coming on the fragmentary, anonymous, blood-soaked tome sometimes called Blood and Fire and sometimes The Death of Dragons, the only surviving copy of which was supposedly hidden away in a locked vault beneath the Citadel.

 

Also, is this the same book Sam has at Castle Black?

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The book appeared undamaged. Maester Thomax's Dragonkin, Being a History of House Targaryen from Exile to Apotheosis, with a Consideration of the Life and Death of Dragons had not been so fortunate. 

If so, Sam has the only complete copy.

 

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He asked Sam to read for him from a book by Septon Barth, whose writings had been burned during the reign of Baelor the Blessed.

One unfortunate aspect of King Baelor's zealotry was his insistence on burning books. Though some books might hold little that is worth knowing, and some might even hold matter that is dangerous, destroying knowledge is a painful thing.

 

Jaqen is trying to get the dangerous, burning/burned books about dragons (Blood and Fire), and Syrio Forel's name means "burning book."   So I think Jaqen was Syrio also.

[Davjos]

I like the little clue. However I’m not convinced GRRM planned Jaqen or Syrio this far ahead. My indication for this is the large differences between what Arya learns from Jaqen of the FM and what Arya learns in Braavos from the FM. These differences to me point to the fact that GRRM developed the FM and Jaqen and their motivations later than Syrio. Therefore it seems unlikely that his name points to Jaqen’s mission. 

[NonoNono]

Seems to work. But not sure I get what Jaqen was trying to do. Did he really plan to kill Ned? Why pass off for this teacher, teaching Arya?

For the book, I feel like the FM would actually support the Others, so maybe they want the dragons dead. So anything they can get to help them support Death would probably be in their interest.

[jthurman14]

The writing timeline is an issue, as stated above. I like the translation, very cool little clue, but might be other translations. One supporting factor, the FM started in Valyria. Which was ruled by dragon riding fire magic elites. The FM for sure are going to be anti-dragon/fire magic.  

One other point this brings to mind. It has been claimed in these forums that the text supports the argument that the Citadel and maesters were anti magic or at least for extreme control of it. That would put them and the FM on the same side. Why would the FM need to steal the book if they are working towards the same goal?    

[Loose Bolt]

12 hours ago, jthurman14 said:

One other point this brings to mind. It has been claimed in these forums that the text supports the argument that the Citadel and maesters were anti magic or at least for extreme control of it. That would put them and the FM on the same side. Why would the FM need to steal the book if they are working towards the same goal?

I am almost certain that maesters do not like magic using death cult like FM. So I assume that they would like very much if all those assassins would disappear.

[Fun Guy from Yuggoth]

I was just browsing my Welsh dictionary, and the word fferyll means "alchemist, magician"  fferyll sounds like Forel.

[Lyanna<3Rhaegar]

Very cool. I'm not convinced Syrio has much to do with Jaqen but I can't think of anything that negates him being a face-changer. 

The only issue I have is that IF Syrio actually lived, we then have another supposed dead person either resurrected or not dead to begin with, which seems a little redundant. 

[kissdbyfire]

On 4/4/2019 at 8:40 AM, NonoNono said:

For the book, I feel like the FM would actually support the Others, so maybe they want the dragons dead. So anything they can get to help them support Death would probably be in their interest.

 On the contrary. The FM are more likely to side w/ the CotF (nature, cycle of life inevitability ending in death) than supernatural beings who are resurrecting the dead. 

Valar morghulis - All men must die

 

[Trigger Warning]

Honestly if he gets brought back or revealed to be someone else this far on from the first book I think it'd be a bit of an eye roller. My take is that ultimately he wasn't that important to anyone except Arya and he died without mention because of it, which I'm fine with. 

[Universal Sword Donor]

Syrio is dead.

[Alexis-something-Rose]

Syrio is dead, but I really like the tidbit about the book. 

If Death of Dragons is indeed the book in question, though, then Sam would no longer be in possession of it. Quhuru Mo took the books to pay for passage and was planning on selling them to the Citadel.

So my money is on the book having stayed at Castle Black or it's headed for Slaver's Bay.

[Fun Guy from Yuggoth]

10 minutes ago, Universal Sword Donor said:

Syrio is dead.

Syrio never existed at all. 

[Fun Guy from Yuggoth]

13 minutes ago, Alexis-something-Rose said:

Syrio is dead, but I really like the tidbit about the book. 

If Death of Dragons is indeed the book in question, though, then Sam would no longer be in possession of it. Quhuru Mo took the books to pay for passage and was planning on selling them to the Citadel.

So my money is on the book having stayed at Castle Black or it's headed for Slaver's Bay.

You made me have a revelation.  Have you read Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn?  In that series, the cowardly maester Cadrach is the only living person to have read Nisses' forbidden book The Weird of the Swords, which was supposed to be locked away in the vaults, but goes missing, and Cadrach destroys the only known copy, selling it page by page for beer money.  So if Sam, the cowardly maester, destroyed/lost/sold the only remaining copy of Death of Dragons, that would be a very close parallel. 

[Pontius Pilate]

The Syrio theory that I favor goes like this.  A man like the Sealord will have many enemies.  Syrio was hired to guard this man because he can see right through the illusions of the faceless men.  He's resistant to suggestion like some people in the Star Wars universe are resistant to Jedi mind tricks. He can see a cat for what it truly is despite the suggestion it isn't. His Sealord could be the very same man who sheltered and befriended the Targaryen children.  Thirteen years is a long time and perhaps this Sealord died.  Syrio had to seek employment and was found by Eddard.  The other way around is also possible.  He was on Illyrio's payroll and they heard a sword teacher was needed overseas.  The little birds overheard Ned talking to somebody and reports to Varys.  They chose to send Syrio. He was sent to King's Landing by the Targaryen restoration faction to keep tabs on the Baratheons.  Fortune came his way when the Hand advertised for a sword instructor.  

[The Ghost Beyond the Wall]

On 12/21/2019 at 5:18 AM, Centurion Piso said:

The Syrio theory that I favor goes like this.  A man like the Sealord will have many enemies.  Syrio was hired to guard this man because he can see right through the illusions of the faceless men.  He's resistant to suggestion like some people in the Star Wars universe are resistant to Jedi mind tricks. He can see a cat for what it truly is despite the suggestion it isn't. His Sealord could be the very same man who sheltered and befriended the Targaryen children.  Thirteen years is a long time and perhaps this Sealord died.  Syrio had to seek employment and was found by Eddard.  The other way around is also possible.  He was on Illyrio's payroll and they heard a sword teacher was needed overseas.  The little birds overheard Ned talking to somebody and reports to Varys.  They chose to send Syrio. He was sent to King's Landing by the Targaryen restoration faction to keep tabs on the Baratheons.  Fortune came his way when the Hand advertised for a sword instructor.  

That's quite interesting about the Sealord being the same one who sheltered the surviving Targaryens. If so, I find it curious why Syrio wasn't sent to Daenaerys and Viserys, unless the Sealord had no idea of their whereabouts. I like to think Syrio may have had FM training, or some method of being able to see through their disguises, hence why he was sent to KL. 

[Fun Guy from Yuggoth]

I think George's story A Night at the Tarn House has a bunch of clues about ASOIAF hidden in it, one of the main ones is about shadow swords:

"And there were the shadow swords to consider as well.  Some claimed they were shapechangers, with faces as malleable as candle wax.  Molloqos did not know the truth of that, but of their malice he had no doubt."

 

Arya describes Jaqen's face as melting (like candle wax?) and he is a shapechanger and an assassin.

"sometimes at night she would take it out and remember how his face had melted and changed when he ran his hand across it."

And the Kindly Man's face melts too:

"The priest lowered his cowl. Beneath he had no face; only a yellowed skull with a few scraps of skin still clinging to the cheeks, and a white worm wriggling from one empty eye socket. "Kiss me, child," he croaked, in a voice as dry and husky as a death rattle.

Does he think to scare me? Arya kissed him where his nose should be and plucked the grave worm from his eye to eat it, but it melted like a shadow in her hand.

The yellow skull was melting too,"

 

This passage also suggests that an animated skeleton is a faceless man, and this animated skeleton is associated with the White Worm, the god of death--the weirwood.  Another character famous for melting is Sir Puddles, the White Walker Sam kills.

 

So, lets say Faceless Men are Shadow Swords.   Arya's catch-phrase is "quiet as a shadow"--she is becoming one with the shadow, and she is training to be a sword. "

Syrio Forel said. "You are a sword, that is all."  Arya is becoming a shadow sword.  And she has a hit list of people she want to assassinate.

 

More mentions of shadow swords from Tarn House:

"And as the magic failed so to did the magicians.  Some fell to their own servants, the demons and sandestins who once obeyed their every whim.  Others were hunted down by shadow swords, or torn apart by angry mobs of women." (the word "Others" mentioned with "shadow swords" and the idea of the wizard's own creations end up turning on the wizard and killing him)

"Most of the great mages were dead or fled, slain by shadow swords or gone to some underworld or overworld, or perhaps to distant stars."

"The shadow swords were here"

"The girl is cloaked in shadows, and under her freckly face I see a skull.”

A girl named Liriane, is a shadow sword assassin, who is cloaked in shadow and whose face was an illusion, she has a sword named Tickle-Me-Sweet and she goes around killing wizards--because their use of magic is what made the sun go dark.  In ASOIAF I have argued that the Night King's plan is to destroy the weirwood network/greenseers and rid the Earth of magic, and finally allow him to die. 

 

In Tarn House Molloqos is described similarly to Bloodraven, an "white as bone" wizard with black and scarlet clothing, who goes to a Tarn House (tarn means "tower" as well as "lake") that is surrounded by a lake filled with hissing White Eels.  The White Eels are a metaphor for weirwood roots and they are carnivorous and eat humans.  The Tarn House is a trap, and visitors who go there are killed and served up in meat pies (Jojen paste confirmed).  Liriane goes into the Tarn House and kills the wizard Molloqos,  but then a frog-faced man Chimwazel kills Liriane and steals Molloqos' identity. 

So, a Bloodraven-like wizard goes into a symbolic weirwood cave, gets killed, gets fed to the weirwood roots, and gets his identity stolen and someone else is now masquerading as him.     
 

 

Back to ASOIAF, the Ghost of the High Heart mentions shadow swords and faceless men one after the other:

"I dreamt I saw a shadow with a burning heart butchering a golden stag, aye. I dreamt of a man without a face, waiting on a bridge that swayed and swung."

 

Mel's Shadow Baby is a shadow sword:

"She heard Renly begin a jest, his shadow moving, lifting its sword, black on green, candles guttering, shivering, something was queer, wrong, and then she saw Renly's sword still in its scabbard, sheathed still, but the shadowsword . . ."

"Cold," said Renly in a small puzzled voice, a heartbeat before the steel of his gorget parted like cheesecloth beneath the shadow of a blade that was not there.

Sorcery, some dark magic, there was a shadow, a shadow." Her own voice sounded wild and crazed to her, but the words poured out in a rush as the blades continued to clash behind her. "A shadow with a sword, I swear it, I saw

'No, no, it wasn't me, it was a shadow, a terrible cold shadow.'"

"That night she dreamed herself in Renly's tent again. All the candles were guttering out, and the cold was thick around her. Something was moving through green darkness, something foul and horrible was hurtling toward her king. She wanted to protect him, but her limbs felt stiff and frozen, and it took more strength than she had just to lift her hand. And when the shadow sword sliced through the green steel gorget and the blood began to flow, she saw that the dying king was not Renly after all but Jaime Lannister, and she had failed him."

The shadow swords are associated with cold, and freezing limbs--like of a tree.

 

"From where it stood atop the bluffs of BattleIsland, its shadow cut the city like a sword."  (The Hightower is a White Tower/symbolic weirwood that casts a "shadow sword"--the white walkers of the wood are being cast by the weirwood)

 

I think the white walkers and Mel's shadow babies are manifestations of the same shadow-binding magic, only differing in intensity.  Mel's shadow baby is cold, but the Bran's white walkers are absolutely cold.  Both have swords that cut through armor.  Both can only exist at night, and are prevented from passing magically warded walls (but can pass under them).  I think the White Walkers are not real creatures but white shadows being cast by a sleeping greenseer.

"Pale shapes gliding through the wood. He turned his head, glimpsed a white shadow in the darkness. "

The Other slid forward on silent feet. In its hand was a longsword like none that Will had ever seen. No human metal had gone into the forging of that blade. It was alive with moonlight, translucent, a shard of crystal so thin that it seemed almost to vanish when seen edge-on. There was a faint blue shimmer to the thing, a ghost-light that played around its edges, and somehow Will knew it was sharper than any razor.

Ser Waymar met him bravely. "Dance with me then."

 

White shadows who are known for their magic ice swords.

 

"The shadows come to dance, . .  The shadows come to stay,"

 

To dance is to swordfight, so dancing shadows are shadow sword fights.

 

"Behind him, to right, to left, all around him, the watchers stood patient, faceless," 

 

The Others are called "faceless" in the Prologue, and they are twins to the first--clones. 

 

 "

The white walkers of the wood, the cold shadows,"

A man can fight the dead, but when their masters come, when the white mists rise up … how do you fight a mist, crow? Shadows with teeth … air so cold it hurts to breathe, like a knife inside your chest … you do not know, you cannot know … can your sword cut cold?"

Tormund says the Others are cold/mist/shadows--not real physical beings, they are a product of shadow-binding magic.

"The ones you call the Others are something more."  "Demons made of snow and ice and cold,"

The white walkers go lightly on the snow," the ranger said. "You'll find no prints to mark their passage."

 

When we get the POV of wolves, like in Varamyr's prologue, "teeth" is what the wolves call knives and swords, so "shadows with teeth" are shadow swords.

 

Things that are described as "shadow swords" in ASOIAF: 1) the faceless men, 2) the white walkers, 3) Mel's shadow babies

 

I think all of Braavos is a metaphor for being inside the weirwood--it is a Secret City that is sinking into the sea (the greensea) that you get to by going under the legs of a stone Titan with glowing red eyes, the House of Black and White is a direct parallel to Bloodraven's cave.  The Sealord is the the greenseer and and the First Sword of Braavos and the faceless men are a metaphor for the white walkers,

The Faceless Men flay people and wear their skin.  They have Arya put on a mask of a face that they pealed of a dead girl--literal skin-changing.  She second-skinned a dead person--which is only slightly removed from reanimating the dead.  Roose Bolton is described like an Other, and his family is known for flaying Starks and wearing their skin--in an attempt to absorb the Starks' abilities? 

[Narsil4]

Interesting, it seems to me that Syrio and Jaqen also speak of "themselves" similarly. 

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Nine years Syrio Forel was first sword to the Sealord of Braavos, he knows these things. Listen to him, boy.

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This man has the honor to be Jaqen H'ghar, once of the Free City of Lorath. Would that he were home.

So I think the implication is that Syrio and Jaqen are already dead, but the Faceless wearing their faces honors and learns from their experiences. 

[James West]

I like how a lot of characters and plots connect to Dany in the east. 

On 12/22/2019 at 8:40 AM, The Ghost Beyond the Wall said:

That's quite interesting about the Sealord being the same one who sheltered the surviving Targaryens. If so, I find it curious why Syrio wasn't sent to Daenaerys and Viserys, unless the Sealord had no idea of their whereabouts. I like to think Syrio may have had FM training, or some method of being able to see through their disguises, hence why he was sent to KL. 

Perhaps Syrio was a pawn in the plot to restore the Targaryens.  He was sent to King's Landing to work himself into the royal court to protect Varys.

[The Ghost Beyond the Wall]

On 12/24/2019 at 6:10 PM, Dr. Miguelito Loveless said:

I like how a lot of characters and plots connect to Dany in the east. 

Perhaps Syrio was a pawn in the plot to restore the Targaryens.  He was sent to King's Landing to work himself into the royal court to protect Varys.

Very interesting. But is Varys truly intent on restoring the Targaryens to the throne, or is Aegon a Blackfyre pretender who Varys seeks to make Lord of the 7 Kingdoms? The connections with Daenaerys story are def interesting tbh