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The birth of a li’ pup (Ghost)


Nadden

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This is the first part of a lengthy Analysis of the text that will show the birth of Ghost.

  During my analysis of the trees specifically mentioned in the Prologue of A Game of Thrones it occurred to me that if a tree can be leafy… can an ironwood tree be irony? I checked and indeed irony can be used as an adjective to describe something. 

  Another thing that I’ve noticed about Martin’s writing pattern is the way he subverts the literal meaning of the text by using an alternate meaning of the same word to develop a figurative idea. Understanding that, a more common use of the word, irony, among authors is as a literary technique. In literature, irony conveys a meaning which is opposite of its literal meaning, an inverse reflection. This thought was glorious! 

  Glorious because that idea combined with my analysis of the sentinel tree made for a perfect match. Or better to say a mirror match. I had long theorized that the sentinel tree in the Prologue of AGOT was part of a larger allegory and is symbolic of a Myrrh tree. 

  A myrrh tree takes its’ name from the mother of Adonis, Myrrha. The idea of a Myrrh tree and an irony tree combine to become self evident of a more grand theory, a magical door! 

  Imagine two mirrors facing one another. This will give the impression of an infinite series of the same image being reflected over and over again. The word-play here seems so clever and goes on to typify Martin’s sense of humor and style. Using an irony tree and a tree, who’s name is a homophone for mirror, as inversely reflective just seems so ingenious and delightfully artful to me. 

  Then he reinforces the sci-fi genre when we understand the science in his fiction. Science says, “if you observe the reflections from two opposing mirrors, you will realize that the image will become greener with each reflection. This is because mirrors usually reflect light from the green spectrum more than other colors. So when a mirror is reflecting color, that color contains reflections from the green spectrum more than other color spectrums. As such, as other colors fade away gradually, the only visible color remaining will be green. 

  This topic could easily continue on into greensight and green seers but that’s not what I want to discuss. I want to discuss the birth of the direwolf pups. I just wanted to plant the seed of a figurative cosmic world tree.

To be continued…

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