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Mutiny of the Green Galley


Isobel Harper

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Throughout the years, I've had the opportunity to re-read the series multiple times.  Whether cumulative or character-specific re-reads, I've always come back with something rewarding.  Forgotten or unnoticed symbolism, imagery, subplots, connections, or just new perspectives that I gain as I get older.  Having spent so much time towards the books, though, I thought I couldn't come across anything really significant and new. 

Until my most recent re-read, where I did.

The Mutiny

While serving seafood to sailors on the docks, Arya speaks with one crewman who reports being attacked at sea.  However, upon close inspection, there's something about this tale that, as Tyrion would put it, "smells worse than week-old fish."  The scene is as follows.

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Two of the ships that had been here yesterday were gone, Cat saw, but five new ones had docked; a small carrack called the Brazen Monkey, a huge Ibbenese whaler that reeked of tar and blood and whale oil, two battered cogs from Pentos, and a lean green galley up from Old Volantis. Cat stopped at the foot of every gangplank to cry her clams and oysters, once in the trade talk and again in the Common Tongue of Westeros. A crewman on the whaler cursed at her so loudly that he scared away her cats and one of the Pentoshi oarsman asked how much she wanted for the clam between her legs, but she fared better at the other ships. A mate on the green galley wolfed half a dozen oysters and told her how his captain had been killed by the Lysene pirates who had tried to board them near the Stepstones. "That bastard Saan it was, with Old Mother's Son and his big Valyrian. We got away, but just."

AFfC Chapter 34 (Cat of the Canals)

Two things in particular raise my suspicion.  First is the contradiction in details about the attack.  The crew "got away" BUT somehow still lost their captain.  One doesn't retreat from a fight and yet still lose the leader anyway.  I looked deeper and uncovered a second piece of contradictory information.

Saan's Old Mother's Son, the supposed guilty ship, sunk before this supposed attack could have taken place.  This particular piece of information is no hear-say.  Davos sees Old Mother's Son crash onto the shores of Skagos with his own eyes.

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Nine-and-twenty ships had set sail from the Wall. If half of them were still afloat, Davos would be shocked. Black skies, bitter winds, and lashing rains had hounded them all the way down the coast. The galleys Oledo and Old Mother's Son had been driven onto the rocks of Skagos, the isle of unicorns and cannibals where even the Blind Bastard had feared to land[.]

ADwD, Chapter 9 (Davos I)

What I believe we're seeing is evidence of a mutiny.  The details around the attack are murky, the ship named cannot be correct, and then there's the choice to sail to Braavos. 

Volantene ships are commanded by slavers, but operated by slaves.  This Volantene galley doesn't sail to Tyrosh, or to Myr, or to Pentos which are still closer.  No, they sail to the northern most of the Free Cities - to Braavos.  That is, to the city with a stern reputation of anti-slavery.  To the one and only city that would empathize and potentially protect such a crew who had committed mutiny if their reason were to free themselves from bondage.

Further Implications

I.) We can infer where Victarion, the Golden Company, and potentially Saan intersect in Volantis by examining Victarion and JonCon's ADwD chapters. 

So, let's take a closer look!

We know where this green galley was originally heading: it's one of the Volantene ships that was carrying the Golden Company from Volantis to Westeros.  We can infer this because it matches the description of a fleet that Victarion sees when he passes through Volantis.  As you read these segments, take note how Victarion expects to see this fleet of "green galleys" but never does - because, unbeknownst to him, they're sailed west, not east.

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In Volantis he had seen the galleys taking on provisions. The whole city had seemed drunk. Sailors and soldiers and tinkers had been observed dancing in the streets with nobles and fat merchants, and in every inn and winesink cups were being raised to the new triarchs.
[...]
The storms would have scattered and delayed the Volantenes, even as they had his own ships. If fortune smiled, many of their warships might have sunk or run aground. But not all. No god was that good, and those green galleys that survived by now could well have sailed around Valyria. 
 
ADwD, Chapter 56 (The Iron Suitor)

 

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"Every ship we capture makes us stronger," Victarion told his ironborn, "but from here it will grow harder. On the morrow or the day after, we are like to meet with warships. We are entering the home waters of Meereen, where the fleets of our foes await us. We will meet with ships from all three Slaver Cities, ships from Tolos and Elyria and New Ghis, even ships from Qarth." He took care not to mention the green galleys of Old Volantis that surely must be sailing up through the Gulf of Grief even as he spoke.

ADwD, Chapter 63 (Victarion I)

In the firs segment above, note that the description of Volantis is that the "whole city seemed drunk."  Earlier in ADwD, The Shy Maid is docked in Volon Therys, just north of Volantis.  

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The Shy Maid was tied up in one of the meaner sections of the long, chaotic riverfront, between a listing poleboat that had not left the pier in years and the gaily painted mummers' barge. The mummers were a loud and lively lot, always quoting speeches at each other and drunk more oft than not.

ADwD, Chapter 24 (The Lost Lord)

The mummers are as "drunk more oft than not."  From this, and the fact that Volon Therys is under Volantis' jurisdiction and just as effected by the recent election results, we may deduce by this description that the mummers are celebrating those same triachy election results mentioned by Victarion.  

In short, Victarion was leaving Volantis just as the Golden Company was as well.

II.) Something fishy is going on around the Stepstones and it's not just the fish.

According to ADwD Davos I, Saan IS returning to the Stepstones.  Tycho Nestoris backs up that claim in a later chapter.

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"Let us hope so. The narrow sea is perilous this time of year, and of late there have been troubling reports of strange ships seen amongst the Stepstones."
 
"Salladhor Saan?"
 
"The Lysene pirate? Some say he has returned to his old haunts, this is so. And Lord Redwyne's war fleet creeps through the Broken Arm as well. On its way home, no doubt. But these men and their ships are well-known to us. No, these other sails … from farther east, perhaps … one hears queer talk of dragons."
 
ADwD, Chapter 44 (Jon IX)

Pirates and dragons?

Per AFfC, we learn Aurane (supposedly) is heading for similar adventures.

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"As soon as word of Your Grace's present troubles reached the river, Lord Waters raised sail, unshipped his oars, and took his fleet to sea. Ser Harys fears he means to join Lord Stannis. Pycelle believes that he is sailing to the Stepstones, to set himself up as a pirate."

AFfC, Chapter 43 (Cersei X)

Pirates and Stannis?

Hmm, speaking of Stannis-

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"Whilst we await Lord Walder's death, there is another matter," said Aurane Waters. "The Golden Company has broken its contract with Myr. Around the docks I've heard men say that Lord Stannis has hired them and is bringing them across the sea."

Golden Company and Stannis?

What we can deduce from all these rumors is one narrative, albeit a false narrative:

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Even before they had sailed from Volon Therys, he had instructed his captains to show no banners during these first attacks—not Prince Aegon's three-headed dragon, nor his own griffins, nor the skulls and golden battle standards of the company. Let the Lannisters suspect Stannis Baratheon, pirates from the Stepstones, outlaws out of the woods, or whoever else they cared to blame. If the reports that reached King's Landing were confused and contradictory, so much the better. 

ADwD, Chapter 61 (The Griffin Reborn)

All of these tales are links into a bigger false narrative to trick others in thinking "business as usual" until Aegon and the GC safely land onto Westeros.  No one thinks to sail against pirates, who are common amongst the Stepstones to some extent.  No one thinks to sail against Stannis, who has no money and is warring near The Wall anyway.  First-hand accounts are finally reaching Westeros and Braavos of Dany's dragons though, so these reports are all getting lost within these as well.

(I also have a feeling that Aurane Waters might have take up his own sigil, perhaps something involving a dragon?  Something alluding to Asshai or Old Valyria?  ...Maybe.  The "strange sails" that Tycho Nestoris reports could be Euron's, ie the Ironborn that Victarion lost in the storms that broke up his fleet in Dance.  Since there's nothing concrete at the moment though, this is all neither here nor there at this time, and just suspicions I have.)

Spoiler

According to TWoW, Arianne I, supposedly Aurane Waters proclaimed himself Pirate King of the Stepstones, going by "Lord of the Waters."  Again, if all is a ruse, that would be part of the false narrative.  

Recall also that, upon Salladhor Saan's first introduction, he's described as the "self-described Prince of the Narrow Sea" - a similar name to Lord of the Waters.  Amongst lie is always a bit of truth.

With regard to this deliberate spread of information, I can see how the mutiny of the Volantene green galley might have gone down.  This crew aboard the green galley was somehow in contact with Aurane/Saan/GC while in the Stepstones and helped spread this false narrative around.  (Maybe the captain doing so when asked and the crew mutinied OR maybe Aurane/Saan/GC killed the captain, freed the crew, and the thankful crew was willing to share any narrative they wanted.)

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Nice catch! Yeah, since you pointed it out, yes, that story would seem a lie, and that leans towards a mutiny with the mutineers seeking refuge in Braavos. I also notice the "rebels freeing themselves" with the color green, and "wolfing" down the oysters that Arya sold him. To me that seems a hint towards green magic side and heralding a time for wolves liberating itself, and thus points to the liberation of the North, not just from Boltons, but also the enslaving Rh'lorr (Mel the slave and her choker).

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Interesting and fresh topic! I think we could learn a lot from closer examination of ships and their crews.

From what I can see, the wiki doesn't see an issue with the timeline for the two activities of Old Mother's Son - attacking the Green Galley and crashing on Skagos:

https://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Old_Mother's_Son

If I were sorting out Arya's conversation with the oyster-eating sailor, I would interpret it as a veiled description of the death of Renly.

2 hours ago, Isobel Harper said:

A mate on the green galley wolfed half a dozen oysters and told her how his captain had been killed by the Lysene pirates who had tried to board them near the Stepstones. "That bastard Saan it was, with Old Mother's Son and his big Valyrian. We got away, but just."

Renly is associated with green - he has green armor, he uses a green Tyrell cloak in his wedding to Margaery and he is closely associated with the Tyrells, who are the current heirs of Garth Greenhand's Highgarden. So the death of the captain of the green galley could allude to him.

We know that Renly was killed by one of the so-called shadow babies, strange beings born by Melisandre and possibly fathered by Stannis. Melisandre could be the old mother, as we know that she has practiced her art for "years beyond count" and may be hiding her age through some kind of dark magic. So the "Old Mother's Son" could be an indirect way of describing a shadow baby.

Not sure who the big Valyrian would be in the attack on Renly, unless it is Stannis who has some Targaryen blood.

I know I just set out the case on another thread that Sallador Saan is a symbolic or reborn echo of Shiera Seastar, and that he appears at a moment when GRRM wants to balance out the power play by Melisandre who has just burned the wooden figures of the seven gods made out of masts from Targaryen ships. If Saan is the anti-Melisandre, how could an attack by Sallador Saan represent Melisandre's murder of Renly?

I think we are reliving the Blackfyre Rebellions in various ways in the series. The Old Mother's Son is also a reference to a pirate queen who was one of the Ninepenny Kings and therefore part of the 5th Blackfyre Rebellion. Shiera Seastar was desired as a lover by both Bloodraven and Bittersteel, leaders of the two sides of the rebellion. We know that she slept with Bloodraven but she refused to marry him. We don't know much about her relationship with Bittersteel because the victors write the histories. Another illegitimate child of Aegon IV was Danelle Lothston. She stayed neutral during the Blackfyre Rebellions except for the second, which plays out in the Dunk & Egg stories. The second rebellion was the only one not supported by Bittersteel.

In other words, the Great Bastards switched sides on a whim or messed with each other and with the succession. Saan's attack on the green galley may be a sign that he has allied with Melisandre on some level. That doesn't ring true to me, based on the conversation he has with Ser Davos after the mast burning. We know that the attack on the green galley occurs after Saan seems to have given up on Stannis and gone off to focus on his pirate work. Maybe the killing of the green captain is not so much an allusion to Renly as a larger symbolic moment of "the death of green." We have seen the death of Lommy Greenhands. Could be an allusion to the end of summer.

But your larger examination of mutiny and piracy could all still be valid. As always with ASOIAF, lots of layers of meaning and hints of things to come.

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36 minutes ago, Seams said:

If I were sorting out Arya's conversation with the oyster-eating sailor, I would interpret it as a veiled description of the death of Renly.

Renly is associated with green - he has green armor, he uses a green Tyrell cloak in his wedding to Margaery and he is closely associated with the Tyrells, who are the current heirs of Garth Greenhand's Highgarden. So the death of the captain of the green galley could allude to him.

We know that Renly was killed by one of the so-called shadow babies, strange beings born by Melisandre and possibly fathered by Stannis. Melisandre could be the old mother, as we know that she has practiced her art for "years beyond count" and may be hiding her age through some kind of dark magic. So the "Old Mother's Son" could be an indirect way of describing a shadow baby.

Not sure who the big Valyrian would be in the attack on Renly, unless it is Stannis who has some Targaryen blood.

Renly is in green to symbolize a green king, the horned god, a "green boy" killed in the "fall" for a grey king, but then grey kings of course get offed to make way for green kings once more. A green king ultimately presents a greenseer. With Bloodraven we have a greybeard about to be replaced by a green boy.

Renly died in aFfC, and Arya knows of this already, and makes little sense to refer to it again in aFfC in Braavos, in relation to "wolfing". Arya has been linked to pearls in aSoS, when Lady Smallwood changes her from the soiled acorn dress into the lilac with pearl dress. Pearls come from oysters. Notice too that George stresses the associations between clams and oysters to sexuality. And the soiled acorn dress, after the tickle match between Gendry and Arya, also have a sexual undertone, but in a playful pre-teen setting. Seems to me George suggests a green boy will get a taste of ...

This falls in line with allusions of the ship names during the Battle of the Blackwater in aCoK, where you can read the ship names as references to Catelyn (one of the Lannister ships is called Cat) turned Lady Stoneheart (Wraith/Harridan), Arya (Black Betha) and Gendry (Fury, and Kingslander and White Hart) having a hot meet-up amidst green wildfire (passion). There's also a Lady Marya, also often associated with Piety, Prayer and Devotion. Could be Brienne, Catelyn, Sansa or even Arya. Swordfish alludes to someone on the Tully side, and a sword is someone who serves the Tully's, so likely Brienne (is mentioned to be lagging and ungainly). The two towers that Davos peers at and seeing the chain boom between them seems a foreshadowing to the Twins. There's a Lady's Shame thrown into it as well.

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RE: green

There's a gold & green and red & black theme throughout the story, a summer/oak king and winter/holly king dichotomy 

In this case of the green galleys, I have to remember that it's fleet ultimately carried Aegon across the Narrow Sea and that Aegon is considered a "green boy" and there's (at least in his ADwD chapters) feature a lot of nature and green life.  Think the Rhoyne and the Stormlands. 

 

RE: Saan

I don't think he truly attacked this galley.  It's a lie they made up, either with his help or with the galley crew just following along rumors they had heard about him.  In ADwD, Davos sees the Old Mother's Son crash in Chapter 9.  The Lost Lord Chapter (when JonCon and Aegon meet with the GC and are about to sail off with the aforementioned fleet) takes place in Chapter 24.  Saan was sailing towards the Wall in mid to late ASoS and remained there until the beginning of ADwD, so there's no time before the Old Mother's Son crashed either.

As for parallels, there's definitely some Nine Penny King business going on, but in a different way.  Salladhor Saan and Aurane Waters are an echo of Saathos Saan and... maybe a Blackfyre?  Such a team-up also reminds me a little of Corlys Velaryon and Daemon Targaryen.

 

RE: Old Mother's Son

The Velaryons had ships named Harridan and Bold Laughter; ultimately is an allusion to Biblical women who were once deemed old and barren having children after receiving a blessing from God.  Sarah laughed out loud when she overheard God say she was pregnant; that's what Isaac means it's laughter.  Elizabeth and St John are anything example.

This is all likely to draw some kind of fruitful imagery, for one reason or another.  Remember Garth the Green who could make women fecund?  Sometimes it's just there to be one part of a dichotomy...  I recall though that Aurane's dromonds (yes, I'm calling them his lol) are half Lannister-named ships (one with a figure head of Cersei) and the other half Tyrell-named, so more green and gold imagery.

Again, all of this is a nod towards supporting Aegon, who'll be the new team "Green" in the Dance 2.0.

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37 minutes ago, sweetsunray said:

Renly is in green to symbolize a green king, the horned god, a "green boy" killed in the "fall" for a grey king, but then grey kings of course get offed to make way for green kings once more. A green king ultimately presents a greenseer. With Bloodraven we have a greybeard about to be replaced by a green boy.

Renly died in aFfC, and Arya knows of this already, and makes little sense to refer to it again in aFfC in Braavos, in relation to "wolfing". Arya has been linked to pearls in aSoS, when Lady Smallwood changes her from the soiled acorn dress into the lilac with pearl dress. Pearls come from oysters. Notice too that George stresses the associations between clams and oysters to sexuality. And the soiled acorn dress, after the tickle match between Gendry and Arya, also have a sexual undertone, but in a playful pre-teen setting. Seems to me George suggests a green boy will get a taste of ...

There's some Aphrodite like imagery going on in her arc, especially while in Braavos.  The clams, the association with the sea.  In this same scene, there's another ship, the Brazen Monkey, to whom she introduces sex worker whose company she enjoys.  

I can't help but make a connection to how she's going to eventually get back home, entering from the east. 

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31 minutes ago, Universal Sword Donor said:

Didn't the Volantis galleys carry the GC to Westeros AND sail to Slaver's Bay at the same time?

Some they do, I believe.  But this is in reference to the green galleys specifically.  I clarify this some in the section with the Victarion quotes.

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2 minutes ago, Isobel Harper said:

There's some Aphrodite like imagery going on in her arc, especially while in Braavos.  The clams, the association with the sea.  In this same scene, there's another ship, the Brazen Monkey, to whom she introduces sex worker whose company she enjoys.  

I can't help but make a connection to how she's going to eventually get back home, entering from the east. 

The Black Pearl imo ;-)

Arya's fangirling much over the courtesans. The way she's curious of them, is like a teen reading a celebrity mag, women she looks up to. Sansa instead read a teen mag for girls full of posters of Justin Bieber (the Knight of Flowers) around that age.

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1 hour ago, Seams said:

Interesting and fresh topic! I think we could learn a lot from closer examination of ships and their crews.

From what I can see, the wiki doesn't see an issue with the timeline for the two activities of Old Mother's Son - attacking the Green Galley and crashing on Skagos:

https://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Old_Mother's_Son

If I were sorting out Arya's conversation with the oyster-eating sailor, I would interpret it as a veiled description of the death of Renly.

Renly is associated with green - he has green armor, he uses a green Tyrell cloak in his wedding to Margaery and he is closely associated with the Tyrells, who are the current heirs of Garth Greenhand's Highgarden. So the death of the captain of the green galley could allude to him.

We know that Renly was killed by one of the so-called shadow babies, strange beings born by Melisandre and possibly fathered by Stannis. Melisandre could be the old mother, as we know that she has practiced her art for "years beyond count" and may be hiding her age through some kind of dark magic. So the "Old Mother's Son" could be an indirect way of describing a shadow baby.

Not sure who the big Valyrian would be in the attack on Renly, unless it is Stannis who has some Targaryen blood.

I know I just set out the case on another thread that Sallador Saan is a symbolic or reborn echo of Shiera Seastar, and that he appears at a moment when GRRM wants to balance out the power play by Melisandre who has just burned the wooden figures of the seven gods made out of masts from Targaryen ships. If Saan is the anti-Melisandre, how could an attack by Sallador Saan represent Melisandre's murder of Renly?

I think we are reliving the Blackfyre Rebellions in various ways in the series. The Old Mother's Son is also a reference to a pirate queen who was one of the Ninepenny Kings and therefore part of the 5th Blackfyre Rebellion. Shiera Seastar was desired as a lover by both Bloodraven and Bittersteel, leaders of the two sides of the rebellion. We know that she slept with Bloodraven but she refused to marry him. We don't know much about her relationship with Bittersteel because the victors write the histories. Another illegitimate child of Aegon IV was Danelle Lothston. She stayed neutral during the Blackfyre Rebellions except for the second, which plays out in the Dunk & Egg stories. The second rebellion was the only one not supported by Bittersteel.

In other words, the Great Bastards switched sides on a whim or messed with each other and with the succession. Saan's attack on the green galley may be a sign that he has allied with Melisandre on some level. That doesn't ring true to me, based on the conversation he has with Ser Davos after the mast burning. We know that the attack on the green galley occurs after Saan seems to have given up on Stannis and gone off to focus on his pirate work. Maybe the killing of the green captain is not so much an allusion to Renly as a larger symbolic moment of "the death of green." We have seen the death of Lommy Greenhands. Could be an allusion to the end of summer.

But your larger examination of mutiny and piracy could all still be valid. As always with ASOIAF, lots of layers of meaning and hints of things to come.

With regard to Saan and Melisandre being dichotomous opposites, yes, I never noticed that between them before.

In ACoK, Davos I - Melisandre burns the Seven on Dragonstone. Mel, the red woman; Saan (in the following scene at least) dressed flamboyantly, partly in green.  (That's some of that summer vs winter stuff I mentioned earlier).  It's not all symbolism that separates Mel and Saan in this manner either.  Saan states outright that the Red Priest services bore him and suggests that Davos should be wary of the Azor Ahai myth.

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1 minute ago, Isobel Harper said:

With regard to Saan and Melisandre being dichotomous opposites, yes, I never noticed that between them before.

In ACoK, Davos I - Melisandre burns the Seven on Dragonstone. Mel, the red woman; Saan (in the following scene at least) dressed flamboyantly, partly in green.  (That's some of that summer vs winter stuff I mentioned earlier).  It's not all symbolism that separates Mel and Saan in this manner either.  Saan states outright that the Red Priest services bore him and suggests that Davos should be wary of the Azor Ahai myth.

And Davos is "reborn" in the Wolf's Den

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Very interesting theory, but I think it may be slightly off target. Once the galley arrives in Braavos, the slaves are safe, so they have no more need to conceal their identity. In fact, you'd expect them to declare their identity at once; if they keep it secret and someone discovers it, people will wonder what they're trying to hide.

As an alternative explanation, maybe this galley is part of the fleet that is bringing the Golden Company to Westeros, and it detoured to Braavos on some mission.  It might be bearing a message to some co-conspirator there.  It might be there to make a deal with the Iron Bank. It might be there to retrieve a long-lost Valyrian steel sword that's been left with some Targ supporter for safekeeping, or to hire a Faceless Man, or ... OK, I'll stop now.

P.S. Google's text-to-speech converter knows how to spell "Braavos" and "Valyria." I guess they know their users.  :^)

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3 hours ago, Aebram said:

Very interesting theory, but I think it may be slightly off target. Once the galley arrives in Braavos, the slaves are safe, so they have no more need to conceal their identity. In fact, you'd expect them to declare their identity at once; if they keep it secret and someone discovers it, people will wonder what they're trying to hide.

Well, not if they just arrived at the port. They probably will stick to a story, until asylum is granted. Nor is it certain that Braavos would appreciate such story to be freely told in the port where all the other foreign ships dock, including Tyroshis, etc, who tattle-tell on Braavos and the mutineering slaves to Volantis, while there are Braavos ships sailing around and could be targeted by Volantis for it.

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Franklin Flowers reports, "The damned Volantenes are so eager to be rid of us they are dumping us ashore on any bit of land they see."  It also occur to me that, in addition to this one galley, there might be more, just unknown to Arya/docking at a different time and area as the one Arya encounters.  If so, this could be part of some larger mutiny.  :stunned:

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On 8/4/2020 at 7:15 PM, Isobel Harper said:

The "strange sails" that Tycho Nestoris reports could be Euron's, ie the Ironborn that Victarion lost in the storms that broke up his fleet in Dance.

Hmm, yet Tycho for some reason believes that the ships came from further East than Lys.  Could they be the thirteen ships Xaro left to siege Meereen?  

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25 minutes ago, Frey family reunion said:

Hmm, yet Tycho for some reason believes that the ships came from further East than Lys.  Could they be the thirteen ships Xaro left to siege Meereen?  

I considered this as well at one point.  According to the AWoIaF book: "ships come from as far as Qarth and the Summer Isles to trade there [in Braavos]."  Braavos receives regular trade from Qarth, so the Iron Bank likely does business regularly there as well.  If these "strange sails" were from Qarth, one would like that Tycho would recognize them.

There are only two cities east of Qarth are Yi Ti (on the Isle of Leng) and Asshai.  I believe whatever these "strange sails" entail are something to do with the Azor Ahai myth.  This might be exactly what Euron's bleeding eye sigil depicts; or perhaps now that Aurane Waters is officially on his own, he is using sails depicting something from the myth as well.  It could possibly be ANYONE just using new sails, but if that's the case, it could almost anyone.

ETA: The Amethyst Empress and Bloodstone Emperor (likely equivalents of NN and AA) are from Leng, Asshai (where Melisandre is from) is where the Azor Ahai prophecy originates.

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8 minutes ago, Isobel Harper said:

I considered this as well at one point.  According to the AWoIaF book: "ships come from as far as Qarth and the Summer Isles to trade there [in Braavos]."  Braavos receives regular trade from Qarth, so the Iron Bank likely does business regularly there as well.  If these "strange sails" were from Qarth, one would like that Tycho would recognize them.

There are only two cities east of Qarth are Yi Ti (on the Isle of Leng) and Asshai.  I believe whatever these "strange sails" entail are something to do with the Azor Ahai myth.  This might be exactly what Euron's bleeding eye sigil depicts; or perhaps now that Aurane Waters is officially on his own, he is using sails depicting something from the myth as well.  It could possibly be ANYONE just using new sails, but if that's the case, it could almost anyone.

 

Yea, when Tycho said the ships were strange I wonder if he just meant the sails or the actual type of ships.  Like you said, I don't think we were given any info to believe that the ships Xaro left were in any way strange.  Could it be ships of the Corsair King from the Basilisk Isles?

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14 minutes ago, Frey family reunion said:

Yea, when Tycho said the ships were strange I wonder if he just meant the sails or the actual type of ships.  Like you said, I don't think we were given any info to believe that the ships Xaro left were in any way strange.  Could it be ships from the Corsair King from the Basilisk Isles?

Oooh, that's a possibility as well.  Per the wiki page, he raided a city on the Summer Islands **in AFfC, so he's not too far from the Stepstones.

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