Comparing Nimble Dick Crabb and Ser Bennis of the Brown Shield

[Seams]

This is an invitation to brainstorm with me, if you have any insights about the similarities between "Nimble Dick" Crabb, who guides Brienne on her quest to The Whispers at Crackclaw Point, and Ser Bennis of the Brown Shield, a hedge knight who serves Ser Eustace Osgrey in the Dunk & Egg novella, The Sworn Sword.

Of course, I have a symbolism agenda in mind. I am focused lately on a fertility theme that seems to involve the colors green and brown, representing flora and dirt. A third element in the fertility symbolism seems to be blue, representing water. I posted something about the fertility symbolism a few weeks ago but I'm hoping to pin down more details about the color brown before offering an analysis of The Sworn Sword story as a whole. Dick and Bennis are both brown characters but they are just two among many brown characters scattered throughout ASOIAF and the Dunk & Egg stories.

As I've made some mental notes about Nimble Dick and Bennis, I've started to ponder some additional elements that seem to be part of the fertility symbolism or, at least, part of a bundle of symbols in which the two characters are active participants: wine, digging, bears, crab claws, laughter and coins / silver. But let's start with the brown dirt.

Dirt

Nimble Dick and Bennis are both unwashed, dirty characters:

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Brienne pushed her wine aside as a ragged, scrawny, sharp-faced man with dirty brown hair stepped into the Goose. ... He wore a faded, torn doublet from which some lord's badge had been ripped.

(Feast, Chap. 14)

He was scrawny and ill fed, his only armor a dinted halfhelm spotted with rust. In place of a sword he carried an old, nicked dagger.

(Feast, Chap. 20)

"You speak of Lord Brune as if you know him," she said to Nimble Dick.

"Might be I did, once.

She glanced at the breast of his doublet. Loose threads and a ragged patch of darker fabric showed where some badge had been torn away. Her guide was a deserter, she did not doubt. ...

(Feast, Chap. 20)

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The brown knight looked just as he had when they left; worse, he smelled the same as well. He wore the same garb every day: brown breeches, a shapeless roughspun tunic, horsehide boots. When armored he donned a loose brown surcoat over a shirt of rusted mail.

His sword belt was a cord of boiled leather, and his seamed face might have been made of the same thing. His head looks like one of those shriveled melons that we passed. Even his teeth were brown, under the red stains left by the sourleaf he liked to chew.

The Sworn Sword

I threw in Brienne's recognition of Dick as a deserter because some of the details of his description seem to confirm that: I believe the word "ragged" is first associated with Gared, the Night's Watch deserter beheaded by Ned Stark in AGoT, and there is wordplay linking ragged / dagger and Gared. In the AGoT prologue, Gared's sword had been described as ugly and nicked; Dick's dagger is similarly described. Maybe we can figure out the Gared / Nimble Dick parallel, as well as the Bennis / Nimble Dick parallel.

In this green / brown analysis, I have not yet figured out how the red leaves of weirwood trees fit in. They are obviously not green but, as trees, they do fall into the flora family. I mention this because I suspect that "deserter" and "red trees" is one of GRRM's wordplay links. If Nimble Dick is a deserter, then he is also being compared to a red tree ( = weirwood). We know that Dick will be killed by Shagwell, as he drops from a weirwood tree at Crackclaw Point. For what it's worth, Shagwell also appears to be a "brown" character:

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Shagwell dropped from the weirwood, braying laughter. He was garbed in motley, but so faded and stained that it showed more brown than grey or pink.

(Feast, Chap. 20)

When you read the details of Shagwell killing Dick, substitute an axe for the morningstar and it sounds as if he is cutting down a weirwood tree, including the bloody hands (similar to the description of weirwood leaves) and destruction of the tree's face.

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In place of a jester's flail he had a triple morningstar, three spiked balls chained to a wooden haft. He swung it hard and low, and one of Crabb's knees exploded in a spray of blood and bone. ... "DON'T!" shrieked Dick, lifting bloody hands to shield his head. Shagwell whirled the spiked ball once around his head and brought it down in the middle of Crabb's face. There was a sickening crunch.

(Feast, Chap. 20)

So we have Shagwell dropping from a tree - like a leaf, right? So does that make him a bloody hand? That would seem to fit with his murderous intent toward Dick Crabb. But we just figured out that Dick Crabb seems to be a symbolic weirwood tree: a deserter with his own bloody hands and a face that gets destroyed. Why would GRRM give us a tree destroying a tree? And both characters are brown/dirt characters at the same time they are trees? Where is this going?

My best guess about the weirwood / dirt / deserter / red trees connection comes from Catelyn's first POV in AGoT:

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At the center of the grove an ancient weirwood brooded over a small pool where the waters were black and cold. "The heart tree," Ned called it. The weirwood's bark was white as bone, its leaves dark red, like a thousand bloodstained hands. A face had been carved in the trunk of the great tree, its features long and melancholy, the deep-cut eyes red with dried sap and strangely watchful. ...

Catelyn found her husband beneath the weirwood, seated on a moss-covered stone. The greatsword Ice was across his lap, and he was cleaning the blade in those waters black as night. A thousand years of humus lay thick upon the godswood floor, swallowing the sound of her feet, but the red eyes of the weirwood seemed to follow her as she came.

(AGoT, Chap. 2)

Humus should not to be confused with hummus, although this could be related through wordplay - pease porridge is discussed in The Sworn Sword.

Humus is the organic component of soil, formed by the decomposition of leaves and other plant material. Each fall season, a tree drops that year's leaves, adding another layer to the humus that will decompose to form soil. The new layer covers the old, and Catelyn tells us that there are a thousand years of humus in the Winterfell godswood. If this interpretation is correct, executing deserters / leaves dropping from red trees is a seasonal change that is necessary for the health of the soil and the survival of the forest.

So this seems to fit with the fertility cycle theme I have been trying to work out.

Wine

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No sign marked the Stinking Goose.  ... The promised stink pervaded everything. Mostly it was wine and damp and mildew, her nose told her, but there was a little of the privy, too, and something of the lichyard. ... Brienne did not dare to ask for water here. She bought a cup of wine and said, "I am looking for a man called Nimble Dick."

(Feast, Chap. 14)

"Wine," he said, "and none o' your horse piss in it, thank'e."

The woman gave Brienne a look and nodded.

"I'll buy your wine," she called out, "for a word."

(Feast, Chap. 14)

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"Only two casks," he observed. "Ser Useless wanted four."

"We were lucky to find two," said Dunk."The drought reached the Arbor too. We heard the grapes are turning into raisins on the vines, and the ironmen have been pirating --"

"Ser?" Egg broke in. "The water's gone."

...

"Nasty stuff, water," Bennis said. "Drank some once, and it made me sick as a dog. Wine's better."

The Sworn Sword

In addition to his appetite for wine, Ser Bennis regularly chews sourleaf, causing his mouth to be stained with red and to look as if it is "full of blood."

If red wine is symbolic blood, perhaps this insight from Nimble Dick explains why he and Ser Bennis enjoy drinking wine:

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When he was not singing, Nimble Dick would talk, regaling them with tales of Crackclaw Point. Every gloomy valley had its lord, he said, the lot of them united only by their mistrust of outsiders. In their veins the blood of the First Men ran dark and strong. "The Andals tried t' take Crackclaw, but we bled them in the valleys and drowned them in the bogs. Only what their sons couldn't win with swords, their pretty daughters won with kisses. They married into the houses they couldn't conquer, aye."

...

Every heap of stones had a story, and Nimble Dick told them all. To hear him tell it, the men of Cracklaw Point had watered their pine trees with blood.

(Feast, Chap. 20)

The trees drink blood. This forum has numerous threads discussing blood sacrifices made by the First Men to weirwood trees, and Catelyn describes Ned washing the blood from his sword after Gared's execution, adding to the tradition.

In spite of the disdain Bennis expresses for water, however, I am interested that the Crackclaw version of nourishing the trees seems to involve water and wine mixed - there is both bleeding and drowning in the battles with the Andals, and the pines are "watered" with blood. There is heavy and continuous rain as Brienne, Dick and Pod pass the Dyre Den (seat of House Brune) and make their way through the forest toward the Narrow Sea.

While Bennis may not vary in his choice of beverages, there is a great deal of discussion of wine and water in The Sworn Sword. In addition to the opening scene with Dunk and Egg delivering wine to Standfast, there is discussion of whether to accept any beverages from Lady Rohanne (who is thought to have poisoned her husbands) and then a scene where wine is consumed by Septon Sefton and Dunk. (A third cup, with water, is given to Egg, who rejects it.)

Septon Sefton may or may not be a weirwood character: he is a septon, which is obviously a holy man in the Faith of the Seven. The weirwood trees are associated with the old gods which were replaced by the Faith of the Seven. But he is described this way:

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... a great fat septon who was sweating worse than Dunk, a round white pudding of a man in robes as damp as if he'd worn them in his bath. ... His moon face was flushed, and there were wine stains on his robe.

The Sworn Sword

Whenever someone is described as having a wine stain, I connect him with Bloodraven, who has a wine stain birthmark on his cheek. The round white pudding may be an allusion to the weirwood paste consumed by Bran after he makes his way to Bloodraven's cave beyond the Wall. For what it's worth, there is a gatekeeper in the Brienne / Nimble Dick meet-up who may be of a similar type:

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The proprietor stood behind a plank that had been placed across two barrels. She was a woman, round and pale and balding, with huge soft breasts swaying beneath a soiled smock. She looked as though the gods had made her out of uncooked dough.

(Feast, Chap. 20)

The proprietor of the Stinking Goose provides an introduction to Nimble Dick, serves wine, is round and is made of uncooked dough. Septon Sefton is present for Dunk's introduction to Ser Lucas Inchfield, Lady Helicent and Lady Rohanne. He serves wine, is round and is made of white pudding.

If the barkeeper and the Septon are similar to weirwood paste and/or Bloodraven, their encounters with Brienne and Dunk could represent the heroes reaching a new level of consciousness or power as they pursue  their quests. This would be consistent with Brienne progressing from Maidenpool to Crackclaw Point and with Dunk progressing from Lady Rohanne's household to a serious discussion directly with the Lady herself.

This initial post addresses dirt and wine and I still have some thoughts about digging, bears, crab claws, laughter and coins / silver in the Nimble Dick / Ser Bennis comparison. I'll have to try to come back later to outline those ideas.

[Seams]

Reserved for discussion of digging, bears, crab claws, laughter and coins / silver. And I guess I better add in something about all the cheek wounds and the chequy water.

Diggers

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"... There's your thrice damned diggers. Best we put some fear in them." He raked his garron with his spurs and galloped through the grass.

Dunk had no choice but to follow. Ser Arlan's longsword rode his hip, a good straight piece of steel. If these ditch diggers have a lick of sense, they'll run. Thunder's hooves kicked up clods of dirt.

One man dropped his shovel at the sight of the oncoming knights, but that was all. There were a score of the diggers, short and tall, old and young, all baked brown by the sun. They formed a ragged line as Bennis slowed, clutching their spades and picks. "This is Coldmoat land,"one shouted.

...

"You lot don't hear so good," said Bennis. "Do I need to lop me off an ear or two? Who's first?" ...

He poked at the digger's bare brown chest with the point of his sword, just hard enough to draw a bead of blood.

... Bennis made his long sword whistle, opening the old man's cheek from ear to jaw. "I said, them pear trees die, or you do." the digger's blood ran red down one side of his face.

The Sworn Sword

This appears to be another example of dirt-on-dirt violence. The diggers are not only in the dirt business, they are also suntanned brown, and they form a ragged line - ragged is a word associated with deserters, as noted earlier. Bennis threatens to cut off their ears which links them specifically to the deserter Gared, who had lost both of his ears to frostbite.

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Brienne lowered Oathkeeper. "Dig a grave. There, beneath the weirwood." She pointed with her blade.

"I have no spade."

"You have two hands." One more than you left Jaime.

...

The ground was soft from rain but even so it took the fool the rest of the day to dig down deep enough. Night was falling by the time he was done, and his hands were bloody and blistered.

So Shagwell is a digger and he ends up with bloody hands, like weirwood leaves.

His death is the result of being stabbed with a dagger in the belly, however, not so much like the cutting of a tree. Jeor Mormont and Craster die from being stabbed in the belly, iirc, similar to Tywin Lannister's death by crossbow quarrel. Brienne mentions "the stink of the fool's dying was like to choke her," which could be a Lord Tywin allusion as he is closely associated with bad smells. If GRRM wants us to compare Shagwell and the Lannisters (Tyrion is a fool in motley at some points; the maiming of Jaime's arm was carried out by Timeon; Tywin and Shagwell die similarly and both stink), then the dirt motif is likely connected to the shit motif that is strongly associated with the Lannister men.

But what does the digging mean?

I think that shovels might be the opposite of swords. We suspect that the Hound has given up his old identity as a skilled warrior and has now become the gravedigger on the Quiet Isle. Another key scene involving the contrast between shovels and swords comes when Ser Alliser Thorne seeks a meeting with Tyrion, the acting Hand of the King, while he sits on the Iron Throne. Thorne requests support for the Night's Watch so they can fight the Others. Tyrion laughs at the evidence provided by Thorne - the wight's animated hand has lost its liveliness and looks like any old severed hand - and offers to provide shovels for the Night's Watch so they can properly bury their dead.

The message might be that deserters become diggers. Or that people with blood on their hands (warriors and other killers) either occupy graves or dig them. Continuing with the weirwood symbolism, the digging could reflect the work of the tree's roots, contrasted with the "bloody hands" of the leaves - two sides of the same coin.

More later.

[Alyn Oakenfist]

As always, great analysis! All I can say is:

Really George? Ser Bennis? Really?