Wow, I never noticed that. Vol. 19

[Alester Florent]

It occurred to me yesterday that Aerys's decision to burn Rickard was not only unnecessarily cruel and arbitrary, but also idiotic on its own terms.

Rickard, accused of treason, turns up in King's Landing requesting trial by combat.

Trial by combat.

Against one of Aerys's Kingsguard.

Rickard may well have been a decent fighter, but Aerys's Kingsguard includes three of the greatest swordsmen of all time, and even if Ser Arthur wasn't there at the time (I'm not sure we know where he was at this point?) that still leaves Barristan and Jaime. Rickard most likely turned up in KL expecting to die, just trying to give himself and his son the best possible chance of survival and at least meet his death honourably.

If Aerys had played it straight, chances are he'd have ended up with a dead Rickard just the same but a valid treason conviction that nobody could really find fault with.

[Fun Guy from Yuggoth]

1 hour ago, Alester Florent said:

It occurred to me yesterday that Aerys's decision to burn Rickard was not only unnecessarily cruel and arbitrary, but also idiotic on its own terms.

Well, he was insane. 

Here is something interesting.  Bran- / brenn- means "to burn, to roast" and "passion, ardor" in German and Old English.  And in Dinneen's Gaelic riact  means "to reach" and "indispensable duty" and on the next page riagaire  means "hangman, torturer"  and riag means "king" 

So George flipped around Brandon and Rickard, because Rickard roasted and Brandon reached for him.  And it was Brandon's hot temper that brought them there after Rhaegar, where a king tortures and hangs them.

[SaffronLady]

2 hours ago, Alester Florent said:

Aerys's decision to burn Rickard was not only unnecessarily cruel and arbitrary, but also idiotic on its own terms.

Echoing Plutonian Mushroom a bit, Aerys was mad, perhaps the only indisputable case of "Targ Madness". Ironic, his father made the statement, and he proved that the "other side of the coin" really does exist.

[Hugorfonics]

3 hours ago, Alester Florent said:

It occurred to me yesterday that Aerys's decision to burn Rickard was not only unnecessarily cruel and arbitrary, but also idiotic on its own terms.

Possibly by my favorite quote by my favorite statesman,

This was worse then a crime, it was a mistake.

[Fun Guy from Yuggoth]

Quote

The crannogman saw a maid with laughing purple eyes dance with a white sword, a red snake, and the lord of griffins, and lastly with the quiet wolf . . . but only after the wild wolf spoke to her on behalf of a brother too shy to leave his bench.

Brandon is the wild wolf, and brand- means "fire, passion, ardor" 

Ned is the quiet wolf, and neoid means "shy, bashful"  and eadan means "shy, timid" right above eadar.

 

Combine this with what Barriston says in Dance about Ashara "turning to Stark", plus what he says about Dany:

Quote

She wants fire, and Dorne sent her mud.

mud  means "mute, quiet" in Welsh.  Barriston thinks she wants fire, but gets mud instead, she got the quiet wolf, not the wild wolf.

 

[And Danar  means "shy" and Lemore is Ashara on the Shy Maid, and yswilio  means "shy" and is right above yswyr which means "dawn, east" and ysela  means "ashes" in Anglo Saxon, gwyll  means "shy"]

[Fun Guy from Yuggoth]

Found another source for the name of Rhllor.

reluire  means "to shine, to glitter, to be striking, brilliant, excellent" in French  and Rhllor is the Lord of Light.

 

and recall that

Rolloir [Rhllor]  means "swathe, rolling stone" and is on the same page as ruad  "red", [Red Rhllor is the Red Comet]

Rhyallu  means "supreme power, invincible" in Welsh.  The Red Sword of Heroes is the Red Comet, a sword that none can withstand

rheiol means "shooting, gleaming, darting" and rhelyw [Rhaloo] means "trailing, trail, flag"  which are all suggestive of comets and their tails

 

Lightbringer is the Red Comet.  And it brings the light by striking something.  Rhllor's nemesis is the Great Other, the Shadow.  [Uthr  means "terrible, horrible" in Welsh.]

[Fun Guy from Yuggoth]

I am noticing some Phoenix symbolism.  The phoenix is an immortal red/gold flaming bird, reborn from the ashes.  Rhllor is depicted as a burning man and that is why the Rhllorists are obsessed with burning people alive, and Azor Ahai is the Dragon Reborn, the one who survives being burned, and is reborn from the ashes, that wields a flaming sword comet. 

I think the Red Comet might be the Phoenix, and Azor Ahai who was "born under it" is also a phoenix.  In Marvel comics the Phoenix is a supernatural flaming bird that flies through space, and takes possession of a human being.

 

Dany was reborn after being burned alive.

Jon is Ashara's son, Born from Asha ~ Born from the Ashes [and he has the fiery hand symbolism]

Berric was the Ember in the Ashes, and he wielded a flaming sword, and he died and was reborn.

Mance was burned alive, but survived. 

who else?

 

I think all this Phoenix symbolism comes from Lord of the Rings:

Aragorn's name comes from the Gaelic earraig  "sea eagle, falcon, halcyon" + gorn "torch"  = flaming eagle ~ dragon. 

In Welsh airo means "bright, flame" + gorn means "with superior power" and "marked"

 

And Aragorn is King Arthur reborn, and King Arthur's birth was prophesied by a flaming red dragon appearing in the morning sky.  (he also had a sister that was born under the flaming red dragon)  And his father was Arthur Pendragon.  pendragon means "war general" / "head dragon" / "leader in war" in Welsh.

art means "warrior, champion, a god, a noble man" and "a stone, rock" in Gaelic [And Arthur pulled a sword from the stone, and Arthur has a sword made from a meteor]

Aragorn's sword is Excalibur, Anduril, the "Flame of the West".  iarthr  means "West" in Gaelic, and it is his flaming sword.  [durol  means "steel" and awdurol  means "power of authority"]

[I just realized that arthur means "bear" and dyn means "man"- bear-man, =  bjorn under a bleeding star? ]

 

 

I think Jon is Ashara and Ned's child.  Asha's son, Born from the Ashes.  The Dayne sigil is the Red Comet, born under the bleeding star.  iachaire coirneach  means "halcyon, kingfisher, crow"  and adain means "winged"  and  draigean means "blackthorn, sloe"

Rand Al'Thor from The Wheel of Time is modeled on this also, he is a red-haired dragon reborn, Al'thor~Arthur, flaming sword and in that series there is much talk about False Dragons, men who appear at first to be the Dragon Reborn, but fail.  Which parallels the Three Forgings of Lightbringer, that is three forgeries of Lightbringer, False Dragons. 

 

Borrell tells Davos that Jon Snow is named after Jon Arryn, and ginnarr  means "eagle" in Old Norse, and boreal  means "dawn"

In Old Norse, both arta means "bird" and assa means "eagle"

[Lost Melnibonean]

"If half an onion is black with rot, it is a rotten onion. A man is good, or he is evil." --Melisandre to Davvos

When Craster'a wives brought onions, [Sam] seized one eagerly. One side was black with rot, but [Sam] cut that part off with his dagger and ate the good half raw. 

[Mourning Star]

10 minutes ago, Lost Melnibonean said:

"If half an onion is black with rot, it is a rotten onion. A man is good, or he is evil." --Melisandre to Davvos

When Craster'a wives brought onions, [Sam] seized one eagerly. One side was black with rot, but [Sam] cut that part off with his dagger and ate the good half raw. 

Love it... and I would add that this analogy might well be applied to the Onion Knight himself:

Lord Stannis had rewarded Davos with choice lands on Cape Wrath, a small keep, and a knight's honors . . . but he had also decreed that he lose a joint of each finger on his left hand, to pay for all his years of smuggling. Davos had submitted, on the condition that Stannis wield the knife himself; he would accept no punishment from lesser hands. The lord had used a butcher's cleaver, the better to cut clean and true. Afterward, Davos had chosen the name Seaworth for his new-made house, and he took for his banner a black ship on a pale grey field—with an onion on its sails. The onetime smuggler was fond of saying that Lord Stannis had done him a boon, by giving him four less fingernails to clean and trim.

 

[Fun Guy from Yuggoth]

I stumbled upon a Czech movie from 1970 called Valerie and her week of wonders, that has all the seeds of Dany's character.  Valerie is pronounced "valeria" in Czech, and there is a brother/sister incest plot with her brother named "Eagle" [and Valeria means "eagle" in Latin] 

Valerie is burned alive on a pyre, but survives. 

A large part of the plot is whether Valerie is the descendant of a vampire or not, there is uncertainty about her parentage, and she is abandoned as a child.  And in George's Fevre Dream, one of the vampires is named Valerie. 

People keep trying to capture/seduce/rape/kill Valerie and she escapes them all. 

At the end it maybe is reveled that the whole movie was just a dream, and there are some suggestions that Dany is stuck inside the weirwood net. 

 

[Fun Guy from Yuggoth]

You guys who were mentioning Davos made me realize the the name "seaworth" might be a modification of something like "c-worth"  so I looked "c-worth" sounding words in Anglo-Saxon.

cweart-  , means "prison" and a large part of Davos' plot is him being imprisoned, on that crab island of the Merling King, at Dragonstone, in the Wolf's Den. 

(in the OED, Quartern / cwerth means "prison")

cweart is a modification of "Quarter" and in Welsh it is spelled chwarth / gwarth  and gwarth  means "to overshadow"  (and "davos seaworth" is an anagram of "sat overshadow" and sathan means "satan")  and gwrthwyne- means "Satan" "the Opposer" in Welsh [sounds like "gortheen"] and Davos and Mel have that long conversation about Rhllor and his Opposer, the Great Other.

 

And "davos" sounds like the Gaelic word for "black" dubh and carthan means "crab" and Davos mentions crabs very often.

And I think the Qartheen moon is the Carthan / Gwarthan / Gwrthwyne moon, a satanic crab moon that overshadows the Earth. 

 

And his name means "black prison" and "black shadow" and his sigil is a black ship, and he smuggles black shadow babies. 

Stannis is a metaphor for the Night King, and Mel is the Weirwood, and Davos is the Shadow Moon: the Night King produces White Walkers with the Weirwood by child sacrifice and giving up part of his life force, and the Shadow Swords can only go wherever the Shadow Moon overshadows the Earth and keeps them in darkness.  It smuggles them into the world of the living.

 

sewaere  means "a wise man"

saewaroth  means "sea shore"

 

And in modern english seaworthy  means "of a ship; in a fit condition to undergo a voyage, and to encounter stormy weather"  and much of his plot involves Storms End, and its lords, and Edric Storm.

I just looked up smuggle in the OED, and smug means "blacksmith" and "to steal" and "to put in prison"

 

cywerth means "value" in Welsh and cywyth  means "fury"

Edited July 14, 2023 by Fun Guy from Yuggoth

[Lost Melnibonean]

Quote

It was Bran's turn to tell a story, so he told them about another Brandon Stark, the one called Brandon the Shipwright, who had sailed off beyond the Sunset Sea.

Branfrom Bran's chapter in Storm while he and his traveling companions were at Queenscrown, just before Jon and the Magnar arrived. 

Since Brandon the Shipwright never returns, I am thinking this foreshadows that Bran will never return, at least not outside the weirnet. 

[Mourning Star]

27 minutes ago, Lost Melnibonean said:

Branfrom Bran's chapter in Storm while he and his traveling companions were at Queenscrown, just before Jon and the Magnar arrived. 

Since Brandon the Shipwright never returns, I am thinking this foreshadows that Bran will never return, at least not outside the weirnet. 

Interesting idea, although I don't think I agree about Bran's future.

I'm partial to the idea that this is one of the discrepancies about the Starks being First Men. The Brandon the Shipwright and Brandon the Burner story is an explanation for why the Starks are not a sea power. However, the First Men were explicitly not a seafaring people.

The First Keep in Winterfell is round, and has gargoyles, neither of which match what we know of First Men construction.

The Starks put iron swords in the crypts of the dead, and the Others were said to hate cold iron, and yet the First Men were said to not have ironworking.

All these details make me question the Maesters wisdom about ancient stories of knights riding around Westeros long before there were knights. Not to mention the origins of the Starks themselves.

 

Edited July 17, 2023 by Mourning Star

[Fun Guy from Yuggoth]

We are reading Harry Potter and the 6th book just introduced me bezour-stones, which are calcified stones found in goat's stomachs that were believed to neutralize poison.  And amulets are "charms that are worn about the neck to prevent against evil, mischief, disease, or witchcraft"

Mel's ruby amulet is a bezour stone and it neutralizes poison.  And the weirwood itself is the Black Goat, and her ruby is petrified weirwood sap, which is actually wizard's blood, as the weirwoods feed on wizards.  And it is blood that has turned to stone, blood stone. 

And in George's story A Night at the Tarn House, he says that "blood of a sorcerer is a sure remedy for any bane or toxin"--and that whole story is a metaphor about weirwoods. 

 

And I just looked up "Amethyst", and they were believed to prevent intoxication, and in Latin, amystis means "emptying a cup at one draught". 

But also, the Strangler is black amethyst, the Goat's Stone--Yuggoth.  And Mel's ruby is a choker.

 

And also, bezour / bazaar wordplay, Dany was almost poisoned in a bazaar.

 

 

[Fun Guy from Yuggoth]

I just listened to George's Windhaven for the first time the other day, and was surprised that it is post-apocalyptic sci-fi.  The inhabitants of Windhaven are survivors of a wrecked solar-sail colony ship that crashed on the planet and they used wreckage from the sails to build wings to glide from island to island to deliver messages.

And the plot is about earning your wings by merit rather than heredity,

and earn  means "eagle" and "merit" and ear  means "sea"   aerende /arr  means "messenger, herald" in Old English.  and the word angel  means "herald, messenger" in Greek and they are winged messengers] 

And Val of Arren earns his wings.  He is called One Wing and he won his wings.  Val and Arren both mean "eagle" or "hawk" [which is synonymous with "hero" in several languages]

Valr / valir means "hawk" in Norse, and Valeria means "eagle" in Latin, and valr means "high" in Hindi.  

aeren, arin, earn, orn, arn, eryron, erni, Ginnarr, earraigh  all mean "eagle" in Norse, Anglo Saxon, Welsh, and Gaelic.

 

 

 

It got me thinking about George's stories that have a medieval setting, nearly all of them are post-apocalyptic sci-fi

Windhaven  --post-apocalyptic sci-fi

Dying of the Light  --post-apocalyptic sci-fi

Bitterblooms --post-apocalyptic sci-fi

In the House of the Worm  (and Dark, Dark, were the Tunnels) --post-apocalyptic sci-fi

 

Glass Flower has a medieval setting in a Black Tower in a swamp where a witch lives and is surrounded by peasants who beg her for a second life.  And it is after the collapse of the Manrealm and the Interregnum.  So essentially post-apocalyptic sci-fi

This Tower of Ashes, and Seven Times Never Kill Man are both sci-fi that feature a previously advanced society of aliens either dying out or regressing to primitive life.  So essentially post-apocalyptic sci-fi

The Men of Greywater Station is sci-fi about how and why the humans lost the war against the Fyndii, which caused the collapse of the Manrealm.  So pre-apocalyptic sci-fi? 

 

The Lonely Songs of Laren Dorr  I think is set in the Thousand Worlds Universe, because Bakkalon and Saagael are mentioned, and I think Sharra is having a psychedelic trip from the Danlai jump gun like in the Stone City.

 

Sandkings, Stone City, and With Morning Comes Mistfall  all have medieval elements--primarily castles and towers, and ghosts, .  But they are sci-fi.

 

The odd one is In the Lost Lands, about skinning a white werewolf to wear its skin to become a skin-changer.  "The Lost Lands" are very much like "Beyond the Wall", as in the Lost Lands is a wasteland where you find undead monsters and werewolves and skin-changers. 

In other stories like Bitterblooms, Plague Star, and Dying of the Light, and Dark, Dark were the Tunnels, George has explained telepathy and skin-changing as mutations resulting of radiation poisoning from nuclear war.  And monsters like giants, dragons, vampires, and werewolves as being genetically engineered bio-weapons that were turned loose on a planet to soften it up for invasion.  Or in the case of In the House of the Worm, the Grouns bio-engineered themselves to live in the dark underground.  So the wasteland of In the Lost Lands  could be a remnant of the Double War.   

[Fun Guy from Yuggoth]

Just noticed that the names all of Bran's party north of the Wall mean "deceiver"

merra / mierra means "deceiver" in Anglo Saxon

geuog  mean "deceiver" in Welsh  [gogan means "prophecy"]

hudwr  means "deceiver" in Welsh

brionnac  means "deceiver" in Gaelic, and brainnse  means "trickster"

 

[And bonus, siomiant / siom / siomwr  means "deceiver" in Welsh, Simeon Star-Eyes is The Deceiver --and that is where Simon Kress' from Sandkings name comes from too]

 

And to get north of the Wall they have to pass through the Black Gate, and gate is an alternate spelling of "goat"--they are swallowed by the Black Goat.  And they are lured into trap by false visions, and they are all swallowed up by the weirwood cave which is described as having teeth.  Where they see Brynden and the CoTF being sucked dry by the weirwood roots.

Which now that I am thinking about it directly parallels A Song For Lya, with the Greishka fungus luring people into its cave with visions in order to eat them.  Greiska means "malice" in Norse, and bryn means "malice" in Welsh.

 

[The Bard of Banefort]

Even though I still think Viserra’s betrothal to Lord Manderly was a bad idea, it did occur to me that Alysanne, remembering how Manderly rolled out the red carpet for her, might have thought that he would have showered Viserra with gifts and attention, which would have flattered her vanity at least. Still a raw deal though.

[Fun Guy from Yuggoth]

I listened to Tanglewood Tales recently, and Circe's Palace is a magical castle where a witch turns men into pigs.  And Cersei turned Robert into a pig. 

But more importantly, I think the Red Keep is a metaphor for a weirwood cave, and there is this passage in Circe's Palace

"he suspected the beautiful woman to be a vile enchantress, and the marble palace, magnificent as it looked, to be only a dismal cavern in reality. As for his companions, he could not imagine what had become of them, unless they had been given to the swine to be devoured alive."

Cersei's magnificent marble palace is really a dismal cavern where men are devoured alive, like in a weirwood cave.  Which is also the plot of George's A Night at the Tarn House.

[Fun Guy from Yuggoth]

Just browsing the French dictionary

echouer [~Ashara]  means "to miscarry" and "to fall, to fail" and "to run aground in a ship" and "to be stranded" and the usage notes use the phrase echouer dans-- 

[Ashara Daynes/dance, dawns  means "dance" in Welsh and the Knight of the Laughing Tree  has Ashara dancing]

And Ashara was supposed to have fallen from the White Sword Tower after miscarrying.  And Ashara is the Fisherman's Daughter who ran aground with Ned, and was stranded at the Three Sisters  [iaschaire  means "fisherman" in Gaelic and gean  means "daughter"].  And then she was stranded again at the Wolf's Den.

 

and right above echoir  "to fall, to expire", echo  means "to repeat a rumor" and Catelyn's plot was about repeated rumors of Ashara at Winterfell.

 

Ashare is Lemore, and lumiere means "light, day"  and is right next to louveteau "wolf-cub" and louve "she-wolf" and "claw, grip"  [and Jon has a sword named Claw, and he is always griping it, and dorn  means "sword grip" in Gaelic]

And that same page has lucifer, and luire "dawn" --luire and reluire (Rhllor) mean "to dawn" and lucifer means "lightbringer"     Rhllor/Lightbringer/Dawn is Arthur Daynes sword, Excalibur.

and relier  means "to unite" and King Arthur unites the people, dun / dunaid means "to unite" in Welsh Dunaid dyn means "man who unites the people" 

and White Harbor is Edinburgh/Dunedin and that is where Jon was born, and he is a Dunedain ranger from the North, in LoTR, Aragorn ranged in a region named Arthedain north of the Shire ---Arthur Dayne

 

 

 

 

hotteur  means "basket-carrier, hod" and Hodor carried Bran in a basket on his back.

[Sandy Clegg]

41 minutes ago, Fun Guy from Yuggoth said:

echouer [~Ashara] 

Dude, that's a little loose, no? As a supporter and promoter of wordplay on this forum, I'm gonna say that I think we have to use stricter criteria than that for word connections. Echouer / Ashara ... I'm trying to say the words and make them sound alike but it's just not working, sorry.