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Podrick Payne, a Greyjoy/Targaryen/Blackfyre/Stark/???


TheLastWolf

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8 hours ago, Mister Smikes said:

As for the real Podrick, I don't think we'll ever learn any more secrets about him.  I think the poor kid was hanged by that monster Stoneheart, and that is the end of him.

Nah nah. The rest is amazing but this, Brienne agrees to turn in Jaime and saves Pod and herself. If I and few other forum members, readers are right, Brienne cried sword. 

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14 minutes ago, TheLastWolf said:

Nah nah. The rest is amazing but this, Brienne agrees to turn in Jaime and saves Pod and herself. If I and few other forum members, readers are right, Brienne cried sword. 

IIRC, GRRM confirmed that Brienne cried sword ... mainly in order to save Pod.  He did not confirm, however, that this desperate ploy resulted in anyone being cut down.

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11 hours ago, Mister Smikes said:

 

Quote(s) please.

I am hoping someone else here is generous and will find it for you. I don't have any searching capacity for finding quotes. But it is there. A small line where Tyrion thinks that Pod's story is thin but he gets too frustrated with Pod's stutter to keep asking questions.

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7 hours ago, Hippocras said:

I am hoping someone else here is generous and will find it for you. I don't have any searching capacity for finding quotes. But it is there. A small line where Tyrion thinks that Pod's story is thin but he gets too frustrated with Pod's stutter to keep asking questions.

I've done my own searching, and can find no such quote.  I'm going to assume it does not exist.  When one spends time on internet discussion forums, one can easily develop false memories.  I know it has happened to me.

I see no mystery about Pod's past.  A series of losses and abandonments have tossed him around in the world and made him painfully shy.  But he's a good kid, and did not deserve to be murdered by a retribution-crazed hell-zombie.  The two points to his story, that I see, are (a) UnCat is a monster; and (b) when a mystery knight and his squire appear incognito, it may be hard to guess whether they are Sandor+Edric, or Brienne+Pod, or Sandor+Pod, or Brienne+Edric.

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19 minutes ago, Mister Smikes said:

I've done my own searching, and can find no such quote.  I'm going to assume it does not exist.  When one spends time on internet discussion forums, one can easily develop false memories.  I know it has happened to me.

I see no mystery about Pod's past.  A series of losses and abandonments have tossed him around in the world and made him painfully shy.  But he's a good kid, and did not deserve to be murdered by a retribution-crazed hell-zombie.  The two points to his story, that I see, are (a) UnCat is a monster; and (b) when a mystery knight and his squire appear incognito, it may be hard to guess whether they are Sandor+Edric, or Brienne+Pod, or Sandor+Pod, or Brienne+Edric.

It does exist. Look harder.

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12 hours ago, Mister Smikes said:

IRC, GRRM confirmed that Brienne cried sword ... mainly in order to save Pod.  He did not confirm, however, that this desperate ploy resulted in anyone being cut down.

He didn't confirm a lot of theories. RLJ. For instance. Though I'd love alternative parentage, seems most likely. Likewise some things are just too easy to infer. No use of killing of Pod after bringing him so far into the plot with lots of mysteries surrounding him. GRRM not Coen bros. Brienne is alive. That is known. She wouldn't have cried sword to save her life. Selfless. Honor. But Pod depended on her. 

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20 minutes ago, Mister Smikes said:

You serious?  I've already tried to find your quote for you, and I did not even owe you that.  Find your own quote.  Prove your own case.

Yes, I am absolutely serious. The quote is there. I can not find it without books, but if you have the books, and look properly you will find it because it absolutely is there.

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44 minutes ago, Hippocras said:

Yes, I am absolutely serious. The quote is there. I can not find it without books, but if you have the books, and look properly you will find it because it absolutely is there.

I'm not trying to be disrespectful, but you have to understand that, to me, you are an anonymous person saying stuff on the internet.  Just as I am to you, which is why I would not ask you to just trust me either.  Let me know when you find your quote.  In the meantime, here's a link that may help you.

A Search of Ice and Fire

 

 

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2 hours ago, TheLastWolf said:

He didn't confirm a lot of theories. RLJ. For instance. Though I'd love alternative parentage, seems most likely. Likewise some things are just too easy to infer. No use of killing of Pod after bringing him so far into the plot with lots of mysteries surrounding him. GRRM not Coen bros. Brienne is alive. That is known. She wouldn't have cried sword to save her life. Selfless. Honor. But Pod depended on her. 

Seems to me that at least some of the mysteries surrounding Pod, for instance in this thread, are fan-generated.

And I'm still waiting for @Hippocras to provide Tyrion's mystery quotes about Pod establishing some dangling loose end that MUST be resolved.  Perhaps you can help her.

This series has a HUGE number of characters that fans can speculate about.  Surely Pod is not even high on the list.  He is not even a POV character.  As a non-POV character, he may well rank in importance below such as Sandor, Jaqen, Stannis, Gendry, Doran, Young Griff, Jorah, Loras, Margaery, Myrcella, Osha. Rickon, Daario and Euron in the grand scheme of things.  Maybe he's roughly on the same level as Missandei.

There are about 20 POV characters that are generally thought to still be alive.  But GRRM told a French newspaper that he expected TWOW to have about 13 POVs; and of those, not all would last to the end of the book.  He has made comments elsewhere about bringing the threads of the story together.  Surely, some fans are going to be disappointed about how TWOW will treat certain characters fans have spent time speculating about.

I agree  that poor Pod is a good kid and does not deserve to be murdered.  If this does not make fans mad enough to want to take down Lady Stoneheart, I don't know what will.  Maybe GRRM will try to drive the point home by having Stoneheart hang Gendry and Jeyne and all the orphans, and fans will still defend her.

One of the themes of this story is that war-hate and vengeance are bad things and lead to murdered children.  Poor Tommen does not deserve to die either.  But the Sand Snakes are coming, and things don't look good for poor Tommen.

Cat threatened Jinglebell to save Robs life.  Yet Rob is still dead.  All that came of it was a twisted oath-driven hell-zombie with aspects of Cat's mind and memory.  Brienne screamed "sword" to save Pod's life.  We do not yet know how that worked out.  For all we know, it worked out the same way ... with Pod dead, and one more twisted oath-driven hell-zombie running around.

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On 4/29/2021 at 3:23 AM, Hippocras said:

there is SOMETHING more to who Pod is

We don't hear the back story about Ser Lorimer the Belly and Leo Lefford until Pod tells Brienne about it in Feast but that doesn't mean that GRRM didn't have some or all of that story in mind earlier in Pod's arc. When I went back just now to see if Leo Lefford and Ser Lorimer could offer any clues for us about Pod, one possibility is an anagram: Leo Lefford = Food Feller. In fact, Leo was in charge of stores and supplies for Tywin's army so this would be an apt name. The interesting thing to me, though, is that Pod and Bronn are linked as supporters of Tyrion. When Bronn marries Lollys Stokeworth, he suddenly controls the food supply for King's Landing. So there seems to be a parallel in Pod's past and Bronn's future. 

Reexamining some of the Pod scenes in ASOIAF, I notice that he is often bringing food and wine to Tyrion, nourishing him. In the brown / green symbolism that fascinates me, I think Pod could be a sort of fertility god, processing food through Tyrion who is strongly associated with pissing ("making water") and with shit (part of the Tywin shits gold / Jaime has shit for honor symbolism). If we are supposed to see a cyclical pattern to this soil fertility process, the deaths of Leo Lefford and Ser Lorimer could signal the end of Tywin as the Garth Greenhands character and the beginning of Tyrion in that role. 

At this point, I see too many possibilities if trying to anagram Ser Lorimer the Belly, but some of them could be interesting, if accurate.

I also find this intriguing:

Quote

"Are purple, gold, and white the colors of House Payne, Podrick?" she asked him politely.

"No. I mean, yes." He blushed. "The colors. Our arms are purple and white chequy, my lady. With gold coins. In the checks. Purple and white. Both." He studied her feet.

"There's a tale behind those coins," said Tyrion. "No doubt Pod will confide it to your toes one day. Just now we are expected at the Queen's Ballroom, however. Shall we?" (Storm, Sansa IV)

Pod seems to say that only the purple and white are colors for House Payne. The coins are gold but they are not part of the house's arms. Why the distinction, I wonder?

I associate coin symbolism with Petyr Baelish and with Tyrion as the two Masters of Coin in the series (so far). Moreso with Baelish. But there are some honorable mentions for coin symbolism, including Lord Manderly, who offers to start a mint on behalf of Robb Stark when he becomes King of the North. We also have Jaqen and then Arya with the faceless man coin. Ser Illifer the Penniless appears during Brienne's quest. My instinct tells me that House Payne's coins might be most closely associated with the village of Pennytree, however. Jaime is intrigued by the mystery of the Pennytree:

Quote

Through the gathering blue dusk Jaime glimpsed fresh thatch upon a score of roofs, and doors made of raw green wood. Between a duck pond and a blacksmith's forge, he came upon the tree that gave the place its name, an oak ancient and tall. Its gnarled roots twisted in and out of the earth like a nest of slow brown serpents, and hundreds of old copper pennies had been nailed to its huge trunk.

...

He tried to count the pennies nailed to the old oak, but there were too many of them and he kept losing count. What's that all about? The Blackwood boy would tell him if he asked, but that would spoil the mystery.

Almost immediately after that thought, Brienne shows up and Jaime goes off with her, disappearing from all of the people who feel they should know of his whereabouts.

The Pennytree is an important symbol in ASOIAF as a royal fief at the center of "The Teats," lands disputed by Houses Bracken and Blackwood. It may also be a symbolic entrance to the Otherworld, consistent with GRRM's use of Celtic lore and legend as a resource for elements of the series. 

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1 hour ago, Springwatch said:

@Mister Smikes @Hippocras - this is the best you'll get: 'Podrick Payne was so shy he was furtive.'

Furtive as in, appears to be hiding something. Kudos to Hippocras for pulling that one from memory if so, because it's disappearingly small. I don't think there's anything in it personally.

That one helps too, but that is not the one I am remembering. I am really sorry I don't have my books available.

Somewhere on the forums there is an old thread for about 5 years ago discussing the possibility of Pod being Tyrion's son by Tysha. His age and hair colour fit quite well after all, and Tysha was gang raped by the guards, while Illyn Payne was captain of those guards. So the proposal was that Tysha was taken in by a Payne after that incident, where she gave birth to a little boy of ambiguous paternity (before eventually being forced to leave by Tywin).

I may be wrong, but I think the precise quote was provided on that thread. It comes from a chapter I believe after Tyrion arrived in KL, and inplies that Tyrion wanted to know more about Pod but gave up because of the stutter.

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Here is one that might support the notion that Tyrion finds Pod to be a bit of a mystery:

Quote

His squire, a boy with the unfortunate name of Podrick Payne, swallowed whatever he had been about to say. The lad was a distant cousin to Ser Ilyn Payne, the king's headsman … and almost as quiet, although not for want of a tongue. Tyrion had made him stick it out once, just to be certain. "Definitely a tongue," he had said. "Someday you must learn to use it."

At the moment, he did not have the patience to try and coax a thought out of the lad, whom he suspected had been inflicted on him as a cruel jape. 

Tyrion finds it difficult to coax thought or words out of Pod and he thinks that Pod might be a joke. These characteristics leave Tyrion feeling a bit unable to connect with Pod but they do provide clues for the reader about parallels to Pod.

The missing tongue is not only an allusion to Ser Ilyn, the Lannister-equivalent of the direwolf Ghost: we can compare Pod to Wex Pyke, a squire who has to learn to read in order to fully communicate vital information about the Stark children. We can also look at incidents where characters cut out someone's tongue or threatened to do so: Craster cut out the tongue of a messenger sent by Mance Rayder and nailed the tongue to the wall of his home. Ser Bennis of the Brown Shield threatened to cut out Egg's tongue in The Sworn Sword. The badly-wounded Brienne thinks she sees Biter's long tongue coming at her but it is actually the blade of Gendry's sword coming through the back of Biter's head. So GRRM is comparing use of a blade to use of a tongue. Interesting that Tyrion is telling Pod to learn how to use it.

Tyrion repeats the "cruel jape" observation in a later reference to Pod. I think there may be two things at work here. Fools tell japes so this ties Pod into the extensive motif around wise fools in the books. Tywin did not encourage Tyrion to express fool behavior but Tyrion's uncle Gerion did help Tyrion to explore that side of his nature. Pod is assigned to Tyrion by another uncle, Kevan. I suspect that Kevan's name is wordplay on "knave" and that ties in again to being a fool. 

The other possible meaning of "a cruel jape" is only relevant if you buy into GRRM's use of wordplay as a systematic structure for organizing elements of the story. In trying to tune into the way he uses words, I have come to believe that the author uses some "almost" anagrams (along with "not quite" puns) to leave a trail of hints. The "almost" anagram in "a cruel jape" is "a grape clue," substituting the letter "g" for the letter "j".

Given the amount of wine that Pod provides for Tyrion and the other food he puts before him, a grape clue would be a logical association for Pod. In ASOIAF, grapes are symbolic eyes. They are also associated with House Redwyne which is closely linked to House Tyrell. I am guessing Pod will kill Ser Robert Strong and Loras Tyrell will somehow replace Robert Strong / Gregor Clegane as the central "green" character in a fertility cycle. (Although Tyrion, who was told to "hold the river" by Ser Gregor, might be the new green character.)

These clues can be combined with Tyrion's advice to Sansa that Pod has a tale to confide some day. Pod is definitely a character with some hidden depths.

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6 hours ago, Hippocras said:

That one helps too, but that is not the one I am remembering. I am really sorry I don't have my books available.

Somewhere on the forums there is an old thread for about 5 years ago discussing the possibility of Pod being Tyrion's son by Tysha. His age and hair colour fit quite well after all, and Tysha was gang raped by the guards, while Illyn Payne was captain of those guards. So the proposal was that Tysha was taken in by a Payne after that incident, where she gave birth to a little boy of ambiguous paternity (before eventually being forced to leave by Tywin).

I may be wrong, but I think the precise quote was provided on that thread. It comes from a chapter I believe after Tyrion arrived in KL, and inplies that Tyrion wanted to know more about Pod but gave up because of the stutter.

Ok, I think I've seen it, or an earlier version. It's a clever theory, or makes some clever connections, but the evidence is sketchy. It rests heavily on Pod being the right age and maybe in the right place, and I suppose, the cruel jape being that Tyrion was unaware that he'd been given Tysha's/his son as squire (but who would do such a thing?)

Clever, but probably a random artefact of so many characters and storylines.

ETA link

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8 hours ago, Springwatch said:

@Mister Smikes @Hippocras - this is the best you'll get: 'Podrick Payne was so shy he was furtive.'

Furtive as in, appears to be hiding something. Kudos to Hippocras for pulling that one from memory if so, because it's disappearingly small. I don't think there's anything in it personally.

Right.  To me, as well, this does not suggest some deep mystery.  It's just another way of saying Pod is extremely shy.

52 minutes ago, Seams said:

Tyrion finds it difficult to coax thought or words out of Pod and he thinks that Pod might be a joke. 

To me, this is just part of Tyrion's resentment of his father.  Anything his father gives him is suspected of being not good enough.  Apart from this, Tyrion is barely interested in Pod's background.  Brienne finds out more about his past than Tyrion ever does.  And, all in all, we actually have a fairly extensive explanation for how he fell into Tywin's hands before being thrown into Tyrion's charge.

Tyrion also wonders how Pod can be so socially shy on one hand, and so brave in battle on the other.   But I cannot see this as an unaddressed mystery either.  We now know enough about Pod to guess what his issues are.  He is terrified -- not of physical danger -- but of abandonment.

52 minutes ago, Seams said:

These clues can be combined with Tyrion's advice to Sansa that Pod has a tale to confide some day.

Well, there is a tale behind the coins of House Payne, which Tyrion says that Pod will some day confide to Sansa's toes.

This could be just Tyrion mocking Pod for his shyness.  But of all the things so far, it looks most like it might (possibly -- not certainly) be a loose end that GRRM is planning to return to in some form or another.  But the tale might not have anything specifically to do with Pod.  And it may be that Edric will end up being the shy squire who tells the tale - or another one - to Sansa's toes

It is interesting that Sansa has met Pod.  I wonder if, when she meets Edric, she will suspect him of being the same person.  It may be hard, after all, to get a good look at someone's face when he insists on talking to your toes.

Random thought:  There is a certain similarity between the arms of House Payne and the arms of House Dalt.

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22 minutes ago, Mister Smikes said:

Right.  To me, as well, this does not suggest some deep mystery.  It's just another way of saying Pod is extremely shy.

Well on its own, yes. The relevant quote though is not that one. It is later in the books in KL, and not when Tyrion first meets Pod. I hope someone can find it because it puts emphasis again on the flimsiness of the back story in a way that feels like GRRM wants us to notice the flimsiness.

There is no strong evidence mind you for any of the theories that are out there regarding Pod's mysterious life, it is just that when special mention is made of the mystery it is, to me, completely justified to speculate. Pod doesn't feel like a character who is just not filled in because it is not important. Instead he feels like someone we have been directed to wonder about.

And maybe the wondering is the point. Maybe it will never be filled in. Maybe GRRM just wanted a kid who felt mysterious as part of his character. Or, maybe it will have further relevance. We shall see.

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