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The Magic of Drowning, Revisited.


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Failure to Breathe

Death by drowning seems to have special magic. As I start to look at it again, there are indications that drowning, hanging and poisoning by The Strangler may be in the same or similar categories of death: they are all throat- and breath-related. I wonder whether Khal Drogo being suffocated by a pillow also falls into this category?

Beheading and throat-cutting are also throat-related. I haven't looked at those in conjunction with drowning (except maybe for Catelyn), but it would not surprise me if key beheaded and throat-slit characters also take on some of the drowning magic. Throat-slit characters include Qhorin Halfhand, Ralf Kenning, Lord Manderly. Maybe this thread can help us to spot similarities and make connections.

I'm not Ironborn, but the thing I'm seeing is that "death" by drowning (and hanging) may be disrupted or cured under special circumstances. This disrupted death may result in a rebirth with special powers.

Or maybe the rebirth follows either a disrupted OR completed drowning. Think of Patchface. Think of Ser Davos Seaworth. I suspect that Brienne, Pod and Ser Hyle may have taken on some drowning magic when Brienne used her last breath to stop their death by hanging.

If drowning, hanging and The Strangler poison are linked, however, and rebirth follows drowning, this would mean that Joffrey would be reborn after his death at the wedding feast. To be honest, a stealth rebirth for Joffrey would actually fit with the rebirths we can find for other important characters throughout the series.

@Alyn Oakenfist had a recent thread that looked at strategic questions around Tywin's drowning of Houses Reyne and Tarbeck. We know this is an important moment in Tywin's story not only because it shows that he is ruthless about rooting out disrespect for House Lannister, but because there is a song about the incident that is played at strategic moments in ASOIAF. The Rains of Castamere is played at Joffrey's wedding feast, where Joffrey dies after (we are fairly sure) ingesting The Strangler. It is used as a signal to begin the attack at the Red Wedding where Catelyn's throat is slit and her body is dumped in a river.

Reyne, Darklyn, Stark parallels; Lannister, Targaryen and Frey parallels

My recent perambulations through ASOIAF symbolism have tended to focus on patterns and parallels, so I was interested when @Widowmaker 811 suggested a parallel between House Reyne and House Darklyn, the noble house that was wiped out by King Aerys after the Defiance of Duskendale. I saw a similarity between the two situations as well, and have also compared House Darklyn to House Stark and House Lannister to House Frey, using the Castamere drowning incident as a basis for comparison. There is no question in my mind that stories such as the Defiance of Duskendale are important as symbolic parallels as well as rich background for things like Brienne's quest in the Riverlands.

For this initial post, I want to focus on two details that may help us to understand how GRRM is using the drowning motif to enrich the meaning of the ASOIAF plot: the boy who is drowned/spared and breathing through a reed.

The boy who is drowned and/or spared

In one of those links (above), I had started to notice that one boy escapes or is spared after each noble House is wiped out: Last Lord Tarbeck (son of Rohanne) at the Rains of Castamere and Dontos Hollard at the Defiance of Duskendale. But the three-year-old, unnamed Tarbeck heir may have been thrown in a well so he might be dead or he might have escaped, according to the wiki. Sometimes GRRM likes things to be ambiguous. In this case, the "might-be-drowned" situation may tend to underscore the double-sided coin of death and rebirth.

The well may be another clue for us. I think the author is using wordplay around the "wells" from which water is drawn and the adjective "well" meaning healthy. These lines that precede Jon Snow's discovery of the obsidian cache have always struck me as odd but they start to make sense if you think of Jon Snow being thrown into a well when he leaves the stone circle at the Fist of the First Men:

"Jon?" Samwell Tarly called up. "I thought it looked like you. Are you well?"

"Well enough." Jon hopped down. "How did you fare today?"

"Well. I fared well. Truly."

....

Jon Snow to Mormont: "Sleep well, my lord."

....

Dywen was holding forth, spoon in hand. "I know this wood as well as any man alive, and I tell you, I wouldn't care to ride through it alone tonight. Can't you smell it?"

Grenn was staring at him with wide eyes, but Dolorous Edd said, "All I smell is the shit of two hundred horses. And this stew. Which has a similar aroma, now that I come to sniff it."

[Clash, Chap. 34, Jon IV]

In addition to the overt use of the word "well" in these excerpts, there may be a more subtle allusion to the name of Samwell Tarly through Tarly / Truly wordplay. Maybe Sam is the well? We know he will lead Bran and his companions through a well under the Night Fort and the Wall. I have speculated that GRRM juxtaposes "well" and "wall" as opposites (or maybe balancing forces?) but I don't want to go too far off on that tangent in this post. (Maybe we can take that up later in the thread.)

The author may also want us to see Sam and Jon saying "farewell" to each other (or Sam saying "Farewell" to Jon) just before Jon takes his leave of Lord Commander Mormont and then begins his departure from the Fist and to the buried treasure / "grave" containing the obsidian.

The horse shit comment by Dolorous Edd may be a reminder to the reader that shit is often associated with Lannisters or symbolic Lannisters (Jaime's "shit for honor" and Tywin's shitting of gold as well as his death on the toilet and the overpowering stench of his body after death). Could this be a hint to the reader that a drowning is about to take place, tying this scene back to the drowning deaths at the Rains of Castamere? There may be wordplay around stew/west, which would link this particular food to the Lannisters as Wardens of the West. The further comparison of the stew to shit is likely an allusion to Bowls of Brown, a specialty of pot shops in Flea Bottom. Tyrion is associated with Bowls of Brown because of the Symon Silver Tongue incident where Tyrion asks Bronn to kill a singer and suggests that his body be sold to the pot shops to make stew. Lots of potential here, if we can find other examples of these symbols that would confirm the connection.

But I haven't gotten to the main point, which is that Jon Snow may be another example of a child (or former child) thrown in the well - I'm thinking of Last Lord Tarbeck, Melara Hetherspoon, Septon Chayle and Lord Alyn Cockshaw (from the Dunk & Egg stories). Or have I jumbled the symbolism? When Bran encounter Sam Tarly with Gilly and her baby (a child who was fated to be left for the Others but who was spared during the destruction of his "House"), they are emerging from a well. Maybe both Jon and Sam are well survivors.

This bit may help to clarify the well metaphor during Jon's Fist interlude. He reluctantly follows the direwolf into the forest:

This is madness, he thought as he plunged deeper into the trees. He was about to turn back when he glimpsed a flash of white off ahead and to the right, back toward the hill.

The white wolf is like a light at the end of a tunnel for Jon. When Arya is practicing catching cats under the Red Keep, she encounters two men emerging from a well-like orifice hidden under the castle. She follows them for awhile and then makes her own way along a tunnel that seems to be part of the sewer system. If the comparison is correct, this gives us two examples of characters using horizontal tunnels to emerge from wells. Jon's well is more literary and Arya's more literal. These "emerging" incidents might shed light on the tunnel themed Gendel and Gorne stories, as well as the fate of Septon Chayle. (I don't believe it's a mistake that he appears at Castle Black after being thrown in a well at Winterfell.)

Rebirth of the spared child

Another roundabout example brings us back to Ser Dontos, a "spared child" survivor of drowning (in a vat of wine) and of Duskendale. Brienne sets off for Crackclaw Point because she thinks the fool Ser Dontos might be there with Sansa (and possibly Arya). Instead, she finds Shagwell, Pyg and the Dornishman Timeon, three odious members of the Brave Companions. Pyg "looked as if he had sprouted from the earth," Timeon "slipped over the lip of the well," and Shagwell "dropped from the weirwood" (Feast, Brienne IV, Chap. 20). In this case of mistaken identity, the little boy whose life was spared has symbolically turned into a monster/fool with a well in his name and his buddy literally emerges from a well. And then Brienne kills all three of them.

What is the author trying to tell us? I had been thinking of "drowning" deaths leading to magical rebirths. Is that magical rebirth sometimes twisted and nasty? I think Shagwell might be a universal bad guy: his motley is pink and grey (Bolton and Stark colors) but it is so dirty that it looks brown (Lannister shit for honor again?). He digs a grave, like Jon digging the obsidian and (if speculation is correct) like The Hound transformed into the Gravedigger on the Quiet Isle. He dances from foot to foot (dancing is associated with Bran, whose horse was Dancer) and his body and the bodies of his companions are left unburied so they "can feed the crows" (also associated with Bran). When Shagwell attempts to come up behind Brienne with a rock in hand, she stabs him in the bowels with a dagger and orders him the laugh. (I think there is wordplay on laughter and slaughter.) "She kept saying it, over and over, until her hand was red up to the wrist and the stink of the fool's dying was like to choke her. But Shagwell never laughed. The sobs that Brienne heard were all her own. When she realized that, she threw down her knife and shuddered." There's that bad smell again in "the stink of the fool's dying," possibly an allusion to the Lannisters. But Jeor Mormont was also killed by being stabbed in the gut.

I think the symbolism here is making the point that there are no good guys and bad guys, even after rebirth. Just as we heard that wolves and lions were equally responsible for atrocities in the Riverlands, Brienne expects Shagwell to engage in laughter (slaughter) but finds that she is the one covered in blood. Just before killing the three men, they had told her about encounters with The Brotherhood Without Banners and provided an update about The Hound. The Brave Companions, The Brotherhood and The Hound are all functioning in the same arena, all killing, robbing and kidnapping, and this may underscore the point that groups and people switch sides or shift priorities, with survival as the overriding goal.

Brienne is aided in this scene by Pod, another "spared child" survivor. (Tywin lets him live even though he ate some stolen ham taken by the knight for whom he served as squire.) Pod had been following Brienne and she finally confronts him in the ruins of the castle where Dontos Hollard had lived as a child. This seems like another rebirth for Ser Dontos, who should have died after the Defiance of Duskendale and again at Joffrey's name day tournament. But I am wandering away again from the drowning magic.

Lord Alyn Cockshaw

Just one more "spared child" example relating to a well. This one is from The Mystery Knight, a Dunk & Egg story that takes place about 100 years before ASOIAF. (This involves spoilers if you haven't read the Dunk & Egg stories, so proceed at your own peril.)

In The Mystery Knight, Alyn Cockshaw is part of a group attending a tournament at Whitewalls. The tournament is a ruse to gather Blackfyre supporters in an attempt to overthrow Aerys I Targaryen to put Daemon II Blackfyre on the Iron Throne. Daemon II is also at the tourney (in disguise) and Cockshaw is his close childhood friend. Every time the disguised Daemon shows an interest in Ser Duncan the Tall, Alyn is jealous and irritated. Cockshaw tries to undermine (kill) Dunk by bribing his opponent in a jousting match and then tries to kill Dunk by pushing him into a well. Dunk manages to turn the tables, pushing Alyn down the well. The fight between Dunk and Cockshaw is witnessed by a disguised Bloodraven, who advises Dunk to let Cockshaw drown in the well. Daemon is defeated in the tourney and his treason is exposed. He is taken prisoner by his kinsman, Bloodraven, who chooses to make him a hostage in order to prevent Blackfyre supporters from crowning his younger brother as the next Blackfyre pretender.

Cockshaw appears to be one of the "single use" obscure characters who will not appear again in the series. When I see one of these characters, I often explore an anagram to see whether GRRM used that kind of wordplay to offer us a clue about the character's function. For instance, Morgil Hastwyck could be anagrammed to spell out "mighty warlocks," perhaps describing the players in the feud between Bloodraven and Bittersteel. Hastwyck's opponent, the Dragonknight, is referred to on one occasion only as the Knight of Tears. Knight of Tears = Father to Kings, perhaps confirming that Prince Aemon really was the father of Daeron II.

Lord Alyn Cockshaw = Lynch a Cloak Sword  - or - Warlocks Lynch Ado

There are other possibilities. I thought the word "lynch" was a good fit if drowning and lynching are related forms of death by asphyxiation. Both the sword and the warlock possibility could bring Cockshaw's purpose back to the rivalry between Bloodraven and Bittersteel, which is a major point of the continuing saga of the Blackfyre rebellions. There are other possibilities: the cracking of an egg is part of the symbolism in the story and we hear three loud cracks when Dany's eggs hatch in Drogo's pyre. Lord Alyn Cockshaw could be scrambled (ha!) to make "Lowly Son had Crack," perhaps indicating that a son who was not first in the line of succession would hatch a dragon egg.

So what is the significance of Dunk drowning Alyn in a well? Alyn sees Dunk as a rival: Daemon II dreams of Dunk appearing as a member of the King's Guard, but Alyn has always hoped that the would lead Daemon's King's Guard. (We know that Dunk will eventually lead the King's Guard when Aegon V occupies the Iron Throne, so Daemon's dream can still come true but without Daemon in the role of king.) I have seen a lot of evidence of King's Guard members as barrier crossers: they seem to have a special magic that allows them to go to places inaccessible to others. Drowning Alyn may be Bloodraven's way of closing a door for Daemon while, at the same time, improving the odds for Dunk to fulfill a door-opening destiny.

But, wait! Didn't I say that drowning leads to rebirth? It would not surprise me at all if we see a reborn version of Alyn Cockshaw in a future Dunk & Egg story or even in ASOIAF. In fact, a reread of The Mystery Knight might reveal a new version of Cockshaw in the theft of a dragon egg. The thief climbs up a privy shaft to steal the egg, perhaps similar to the well down which Cockshaw was thrown. A cloak, a sword and a hatchable dragon egg are important treasures associated with Targaryen kings. In the right hands and used strategically, they could turn public opinion away from one monarch and toward another. The thief who obtains the dragon egg is acting on behalf of Bloodraven. Maybe the drowning of Cockshaw puts Bloodraven in charge of Cockshaw's allegorical role in the story. In the game of Chutes and Ladders (which I understand is known as Snakes and Ladders in Europe), Bloodraven has just beaten Bittersteel, climbing the ladder to the dragon's egg.

This is getting too long. I will try to come back and write about breathing through a reed in a subsequent comment.

 

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Tyrion Drowning in the Green Fork

Before I get into the "breathing through a reed" stuff, I want to note some parallels between Tyrion at the Green Fork (AGoT, Chap. 62, Tyrion XIII) and Jon Snow at the Fist (Clash, Chap. 34, Jon IV), as described in the previous post. I think Tyrion may be "the boy who is spared/drowned" in this battle scene, as Jon Snow may have been ritually drowned/spared in the scene at the Fist.

One moment Jon was striding beneath the trees whistling and shouting alone in the green, pinecones and fallen leaves under his feet; the next, the great white direwolf was walking beside him pale as morning mist.

The rising sun was burning off the drifting tendrils of fog as Tyrion led them off. . . . "Look," he shouted, pointing with his axe. "The river." A blanket of pale mist still clung to the surface of the water, the murky green current swirling past underneath.

There is something going on with breast feeding imagery, as Jon contemplates the Milkwater river in his POV and Tyrion almost joins Tywin and Kevan in a feast of suckling pig. In spite of his hunger, he spits out his first bite of meat and departs before eating, hoping that the remaining officers will choke on their suckling pigs. Jon observes the Milkwater from above, not coming into contact with it.

As noted above, Jon follows his direwolf out of the dark trail below the Fist where he felt lost; feeling lost in the vast Lannister camp, Tyrion finds his way by following the laughter of Shagga, a man from one of the mountain clans, who is loyal to Tyrion.

Clambering atop the piled rocks, Jon gazed off toward the setting sun. He could see the light shimmering like hammered gold off the surface of the Milkwater as it curved away to the south. ... On the horizon stood the mountains like a great shadow, range on range of them receding into the blue-grey distance, their jagged peaks sheathed eternally in snow. Even from afar they looked vast and cold and inhospitable.

Closer at hand, it was the trees that ruled. To the south and east the wood went on as far as Jon could see, a vast tangle of root and limb painted in a thousand shades of green with here and there a patch of red . . . . A thousand leaves fluttered, and for a moment the forest seemed a deep green sea, storm-tossed and heaving, eternal and unknowable.

He was conscious of their eyes on his back as he waddled down the hill. . . . Dusk had settled, turning all the banners black. The Lannister camp sprawled for miles between the river and the kingsroad. In amongst the men and the horses and the trees, it was easy to get lost, and Tyrion did. ... A giggling woman raced past him, naked beneath a dark cloak, her drunken pursuer stumbling over tree roots. Farther on, two spearmen faced each other across a little trickle of a stream, practicing their thrust-and-parry in the fading light, their chests bare and slick with sweat.

No one looked at him. No one spoke to him. No one paid him any mind. He was surrounded by men sworn to House Lannister, a vast host twenty thousand strong, and yet he was alone.

When he heard the deep rumble of Shagga's laughter booming through the dark, he followed it to the Stone Crows in their small corner of the night.

Cats, water, rocks, mountains

Although Jon has not yet met Ygritte in Chap. 34 (she appears in ACoK, Chap. 51), I think we are supposed to compare Ygritte and Shae, Tyrion's new love interest who first appears in his Green Fork chapter. Jon will climb a mountain and encounter Ygritte at the top. There will also be quite a lot of shadowcat discussion in that Ygritte chapter. Remember the circumstances of Tyrion's shadowcat cloak? It came from a member of a mountain clan, passed through the hands of Merillion and was won by Tyrion in a gambling bet. There seems to be a mash-up of mountain clans, Bronn and Shae as parts of Tyrion's inner circle in this chapter. Bronn is described as "cat-quick and cat-graceful" just after he and Tyrion discuss how Bronn obtained Shae as a bedwarmer for Tyrion. And see the excerpt, below, where Shae purrs.

I mention the cat imagery because I think this is another clue tying these drowning chapter to Arya's "well" chapter in the lower levels of the Red Keep. As part of her sword-fighting training with Syrio Forel, Arya is instructed to catch stray cats wandering around the castle. This leads her to eavesdrop on the conversation of the two men who emerge from the circular stone steps beneath the castle. If Ygritte is associated with shadowcats and Bronn/Shae are also cat-like, it seems that Jon and Tyrion also catch cats around the time of their symbolic drowning.

The Ygritte / Shae connection also brings us back to the suckling symbolism mentioned earlier. The ranger called Stonesnake instructs Jon Snow about climbing the mountain:

"The mountain is your mother. Cling to her, press your face up against her teats, and she won't drop you" (Clash, Chap. 51, Jon VI).

And Tyrion finds peace of mind after having sex with Shae:

He could feel he softness of her breasts pressed against his arm as she lay beside him. That was a good feeling.

If I were guessing right now at the meaning of the Milkwater / suckling pig / breast symbolism, I would say that becoming acquainted with breasts is part of the rebirth process for both Tyrion and Jon Snow. Both were separated from their mothers as very young babies and probably didn't get the benefit of much maternal breastfeeding, if any. (Someday maybe we can have a whole separate thread on wet nurses and milkbrothers.)

The difference is that the teats for Jon Snow are the rock face of a mountain and the breasts for Tyrion are on a young woman who is also a whore. This is part of a pair of opposites I have discussed in other posts: the "stallion that mounts the world" and "mountain that rides" imagery - Jon is climbing a mountain and Tyrion is mounted by a whore/horse prior to becoming a mountain that rides, as these next passages show.

Aside from the breasts and cats, there also seems to be a shared motif around piles of rocks or stones:

"What about water, my lord?" Jon wondered.

"We crossed a brook at the foot of the hill."

"A long way to climb for a drink," Jon pointed out, "and outside the ring of stones."

Thoren said, "Are you too lazy to climb a hill, boy?" ...

"Stop acting the boy," he told himself. Clambering atop the piled rocks, Jon gazed off toward the setting sun.

Naked, he crawled outside, stepped over his squire, and walked around behind his tent to make water.

...

"And what am I, pray?" Tyrion asked her. "A giant?"

"Oh, yes," she purred, "my giant of Lannister." She mounted him then, and for a time, she almost made him believe it. Tyrion went to sleep smiling. . . .

... his groom had brought up his mount, a formidable brown courser armored as heavily as he was. He needed help to mount; he felt as though he weighed a thousand stone.

So stone and water both make appearances. Jon is worried about obtaining water; Tyrion makes water (in the Lannister fashion). Jon decides to stop being a boy and he climbs atop some rocks. Tyrion is first mounted (by Shae) and then he is assisted in mounting and then, it seems, he is made of tons of stone, like a mountain. We know that Gregor Clegane is acknowledged as the Mountain that Rides and Dany's baby, Raego, is expected to be the Stallion that Mounts the World. In these Jon Snow and Tyrion scenes, it is Jon Snow as the stallion mounting the world and Tyrion as the mountain that rides. The Tyrion comparison is especially apt here, as this is one of the chapters where Gregor speaks some of his few lines in the books: he is the commander in charge of Tyrion and his mountain clan supporters as the battle begins. Returning to our drowning theme, it is Gregor who tells Tyrion to "Hold the river."

Horses, fist, dancing, raining, reach

After being told to "Hold the river," Tyrion looks around at the lay of the land and river, and then instructs the men of the mountain clans:

The left of the left. To turn their flank, the Starks would need horses that could run on water. Tyrion led his men toward the riverbank. "Look," he shouted, pointing with his axe. "The river." A blanket of pale mist still clung to the surface of the water, the murky green current swirling past underneath. The shallows were muddy and choked with reeds. "That river is ours. Whatever happens, keep close to the water. Never lose sight of it. Let no enemy come between us and our river. If they dirty our waters, hack off their cocks and feed them to the fishes."

...

He watched Ser Gregor as the Mountain rode up and down the line, shouting and gesticulating. This wing too was all cavalry, but where the right was a mailed fist of knight and heavy lancers, the vanguard was made up of the sweepings of the west: mounted archers in leather jerkins, a swarming mass of undisciplined freeriders and sellswords, fieldhands on plow horses armed with scythes and their fathers' rusted swords, half-trained boys from the stews of Lannisport . . . and Tyrion and his mountain clansmen.

In the battle, Ser Gregor's horse falls on the northerners' shield wall, dying but breaking the barrier (Ser Gregor survives). [Note: @sweetsunray has predicted an avalanche at The Eyrie, based on analysis of details in a jousting match involving Ser Gregor. Gregor's horse falling here and breaking the shield wall may be a related bit of foreshadowing.] Tyrion will defeat one opponent by stabbing his helmet spike up into the belly of the man's horse. The horse then falls on the man, pinning his leg and breaking his arm. There is some ambiguous dialogue where it sounds as if Tyrion yields to the man before realizing that the man is defeated and is yielding to him. Tyrion has taken a captive knight. In the context of the "mount" wordplay, these pivotal moments involving horses may underscore the mount / mountain symbolism that helps us to sort out who is on which primordial team and which team has come out on top in any given battle.

The bit about the Starks needing horses that could run on water is very interesting. Arya's combat training involves become a water dancer, but Robb and his bannermen - much less their horses - presumably do not have this training. Crossing water is an ongoing problem for Robb, in fact. Now frozen water would be a different thing ...

There are telling details that link Tyrion's Green Fork chapter to other combat scenes in this drowning analysis: a man-at-arms attacked Tyrion and "danced back" just as Bronn kills two foes by lopping off one man's head and raking "his blade across a second man's face." The one-against-three situation, dancing opponent, beheading and face-wounding are all associated with Brienne fighting the three Brave Companions at Crackclaw Point.

Tyrion then fights back against a spear-thrower: "Tyrion circled around him, raining axe blows down on the wood." Raining symbolism again, almost certainly alluding to the Rains of Castamere. Interestingly, the opponent slips and falls, putting him below the reach of Tyrion's axe. So Tyrion leaves him on the field and chases down a different foe. Is this a hint for us about a Reyne/Tarbeck survivor? Look for someone hiding under a shield, somewhere below the Reach. . . .

One more observation about dancing: after the battle, Tyrion searches out his father. Tyrion had realized at the start of the battle that Tywin had assigned him along with poorly-armed and trained troops in one of the most dangerous locations in the battlefield. Tywin admits that he expected Tyrion's mountain men and the other bannermen on the left flank to break ranks and flee, drawing the Stark army toward the river, which would allow Lannister troops to sweep in behind the northmen and drive them into the river. Tyrion replies, "A pity my savages ruined your dance."

Dancing can be a metaphor for fighting. We know this from the Dance of the Dragons civil war in Westeros history as well as the details about "dancing" opponents in the Shagwell vs. Brienne fight and the Stark man-at-arms who fights Tyrion in this chapter. So here we have Tywin trying to dance against Tyrion. Tywin's dance was unsuccessful, however, because Tyrion had the mountain clans on his side. By exposing him as a dancer, we learn that Tywin is as much Tyrion's enemy here as was the Stark army.

Tyrion's survival is due in no small part to Shagga of the Stone Crows, who is the first through the broken shield wall opened up by Ser Gregor's dying horse and who miraculously survives after being shot full of arrows. In excerpts cited earlier, Shagga's laughter allowed Tyrion to emerge from his lost wanderings in the vast army camp, parallel to Jon Snow's direwolf providing a signal that allows Jon Snow to find his way out of the forest below the Fist. After the battle here, Shagga is more like Robb Stark's direwolf, Grey Wind, after the Red Wedding. The Frey archers kill Grey Wind by shooting him full of arrows. The wolf's head is then sewn onto Robb Stark's decapitated body. In addition to the arrows, Tyrion finds Shagga cradling in his lap the head of one of his clansmen who died in the battle.

Shagga's miraculous survival seems like another rebirth situation. Is it a rebirth for Robb Stark? Or a signal that Robb won't be as dead as we believe him to be after the Red Wedding? The chapter closes with news that the "green boy" has escaped across the Green Fork, outwitting or outrunning the Lannister soldiers sent to take him prisoner. Tywin hoped to drown him in a river but he ends up being yet another boy who is spared.

Getting back to the point

If the point of this thread is to understand drowning in ASOIAF, why did I spend all this time connecting Tyrion's Green Fork chapter to Jon Snow's Fist chapter? As often happens when a set of GRRM's creative and complex sets of symbols finally start to make sense for readers, a larger point can be revealed. The drowning / rebirth is bringing us, once again, to the "green vs. brown, seasons and fertility" theme that underpins a lot of ASOIAF. On the surface, Tyrion's battle scene has him fighting with the army led by Robb Stark. Under the surface, via symbolism, we see Tyrion engaged in a fertility ritual, trying to prevent northmen from having contact with the Green river.

I am an avid fan of Brienne's quest, especially as some of the symbolism has been revealed through rereading and discussion in this forum. Because of the sapphires, the blue water around Tarth, Brienne's "blue" status in Renly's Rainbow Guard and the blue armor and bardings on Brienne's horse in the tourney at Bitterbridge, I have assumed that Brienne will somehow play a role when GRRM's saga eventually takes us to the Blue Fork of the Trident River.

We know that Rhaegar died at the Red Fork and we see Arya throw Joffrey's sword "Lion's Tooth" into the Red Fork. In the Tyrion POV discussed here, we see him "holding" the Green Fork. We will also see Robb crossing the Green Fork at the Twins and we will be told about Catelyn's body being pulled from the Green Fork by Arya's direwold, Nymeria. In the Jon Snow POV, he is linked to the Milkwater. In the later chapter with Stonesnake and Ygritte, Jon Snow will travel to the headwaters of the Milkwater, viewing them from atop the mountain where he encounters Ygritte and experiencing a vision of a sprouting weirwood from which his brother's presence emanates.

Of course, Tyrion will have a trip in a wine barrel, another river, and a storm at sea - more drowning. He will travel on a riverboat along the Rhoyne River and will barely survive the storm while locked in a cabin full of pig shit. When he escapes from slavery with Penny and Ser Jorah, he pretends he is going to fetch pails of water - the same ruse Jon Snow used in his departure from the Fist before finding the obsidian cache.

Understanding these linked characters, chapters and rivers helps with the drowning theme. If the theory of the green / brown fertility symbolism is correct, it makes sense that rivers - bringers of water - would also play a role in the seasonal rebirth symbolism. And that leads me to suspect that there will also be a set of sunshine symbols - another necessary source of nourishment that allows life to thrive.

This is all much longer than I intended! I will try to get to the promised "breathing through a reed" analysis but I will put it in a comment down the thread instead of further editing this comment.

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This is a really nice theory, but honestly we if look at it when we are talking about violent deaths neck related trauma is incredibly common (either beheading, slicing the neck, choking, drowning, etc). However I do agree on the significance of these actions, however the thing that is significant about them isn't the drowning (or other similar neck related means of killing) but rather death itself. The Reins of Castamere signifies death, initially the death of Lannister rivals, but after the Purple Wedding the death of Lannisters as well. Ironic... It's just that a lot of violent deaths come from neck related causes, or as you put it similar to drowning. Still really neat theory, don't want to think how much you worked to write it.

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If Mel is partially correct with her statement about gods.

Quote

There are two, Onion Knight. Not seven, not one, not a hundred or a thousand. Two!

The magic behind what is happening may fall into categorizes something like this.. 

Sea Stone Sky
Drowned   Storm
R'hllor   Great Other
Flame & Shadow   Night & Terror
White & Black Grey Black & White
Kiss of Life Grey Kiss Kiss of Death

 

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For a thousand thousand years sea and sky had been at war.

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On 2/26/2020 at 4:14 PM, Seams said:

He dances from foot to foot (dancing is associated with Bran, whose horse was Dancer) and his body and the bodies of his companions are left unburied so they "can feed the crows" (also associated with Bran).

Very nice post. I've told you this before but I love reading the things you put together. 

Alas, I'm no good at this so please forgive me if this doesn't fit in with where you are going but this post reminded me of Arya trying to be a water dancer. Obviously the water with fit in with the drowning. What do you make of that? 

Again, nice post. 

 

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Regarding magical transformation, drowning, or, more accurately, near-drowning is a metaphor for greenseeing, as per the ‘greensea’ pun I’ve identified.

Meta-wise, the reader's experience of drowning in sea/see symbolism reinforces the symbolism of (near-)drowning as a greenseeing metaphor!

Read my response in @hiemal’s classic Nennymoan thread, inspired, so many moons ago, by the quintessential near-drownee, Patchface, and my curiosity to crack the meaning of his riddles, particularly the reiterated phrase held in common among the riddles, ‘under the sea’...

If you don’t want to read the whole thing — it’s lengthy, I know I know — then see purple headings 'Drowning as a metaphor for greenseeing' & 'Bran's phenomenology of greenseeing':

 

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4 hours ago, ravenous reader said:

particularly the reiterated phrase held in common among the riddles, ‘under the sea’...

Perhaps the phrases are supposed to be related to the Sea aspect of the gods. 

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Under the sea

always summer
crows are white as snow,
birds have scales for feathers,
flames burn green and blue and black,

So maybe they could be input into the categories something like this?

Sea Stone Sky
Drowned   Storm
Always Summer   Always Winter?
White Crows   Black Crows?
Dragons?   Huge Falcons?
Green Flame   Yellow?
Blue Flame   Orange?
Purple?   Red?
Black Flame   White?
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On 2/27/2020 at 8:46 PM, Lyanna<3Rhaegar said:

Very nice post. I've told you this before but I love reading the things you put together. 

Alas, I'm no good at this so please forgive me if this doesn't fit in with where you are going but this post reminded me of Arya trying to be a water dancer. Obviously the water with fit in with the drowning. What do you make of that?

Thanks.

I'm so glad you mentioned Arya! I agree that Arya as a water dancer must be connected to the drowning / spared boy symbolism. Is she immune to drowning? Did she drown like a follower of the Drowned God and now finds that she can "never die"? Are there other water dancers in the books?

Arya came to mind again as I explored the imagery in Tyrion's Green Fork POV (see above, the comment below the op). Gregor Clegane instructs Tyrion to "Hold the river," keeping the Stark bannermen away. Tyrion seems to feel some confidence about this task. To cross the river, Tyrion notes that the Starks would need horses that could run on water. Maybe the hint to the reader is that Robb does not have this power but one of the other Starks (Arya) does.

On 2/28/2020 at 2:48 AM, The_Watcher_On_The_Walls said:

I don’t have anything constructive to add, other than a sincere well done. 

I like to think my ASOIAF knowledge is pretty hot, but then I read stuff like this and it reminds me that I know nothing. 

After I tried to cover all of the "well" possibilities, I remembered old "Puns and Wordplay" theorizing about a string of puns around hole / whole / well / wohl (German) / howl. From that post:

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Today, I came across this line in ACoK, Catelyn II: "... Catelyn dreamt that Bran was whole again." The wordplay wheels are always turning, and I wondered whether there might be a connection among the howl of a wolf, the German word "Wohl" (well, welfare, weal, well-being), whole and well. Certainly we see the comatose Bran become stronger when Robb opens the window so the howl of the direwolf can be heard in his bedchamber. The German word is relevant only as the bridge that connects the letters of "howl" to "well."

But how does the "well" that describes health connect to the "well" where water is drawn up in a bucket, if at all? In the books, some people drown in wells. Nasty people emerge from a hiding place in a well when Brienne reaches Crackclaw Point.

That post was written three years ago. Maybe we're getting closer now to understanding GRRM's use of wells.

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14 hours ago, Seams said:

I'm so glad you mentioned Arya! I agree that Arya as a water dancer must be connected to the drowning / spared boy symbolism. Is she immune to drowning? Did she drown like a follower of the Drowned God and now finds that she can "never die"? Are there other water dancers in the books

Maybe she is immune to drowning. Or maybe 'No one' is? 

I don't know if she can "never die" but she does tell death 'not today'

I would be curious to find other water dancers/those who can 'walk' on water. 

On 2/26/2020 at 4:15 PM, Seams said:

mention the cat imagery because I think this is another clue tying these drowning chapter to Arya's "well" chapter in the lower levels of the Red Keep. As part of her sword-fighting training with Syrio Forel, Arya is instructed to catch stray cats wandering around the castle. This leads her to eavesdrop on the conversation of the two men who emerge from the circular stone steps beneath the castle. If Ygritte is associated with shadowcats and Bronn/Shae are also cat-like, it seems that Jon and Tyrion also catch cats around the time of their symbolic drowning

I'm not sure what to make of this but it's notable that Arya 'becomes' a cat, in more ways that one. First she comes from a 'cat' being born of Catelyn, later she becomes Cat of the Canals, & later still skinchanges into an actual cat to see through the cats eyes. 

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