Revisiting the "Princess Rhaenys was a warg" theory

[Sandy Clegg]

By way of preamble, this is the archived thread which I'm alluding to in my title:

Anyway, here are my thoughts.

On my re-read of ASOS, I got to the Tyrion chapter where Tywin recounts details of the murder of Rhaegar's family and was struck by the viciousness of Amory Lorch's attack:

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Ser Amory was almost as bestial with Rhaenys. I asked him afterward why it had required half a hundred thrusts to kill a girl of . . . two? Three? He said she'd kicked him and would not stop screaming. If Lorch had half the wits the gods gave a turnip, he would have calmed her with a few sweet words and used a soft silk pillow." His mouth twisted in distaste. "The blood was in him."

Half a hundred stabs to kill a young girl. Now, admittedly Amory Lorch is a piece of work, reportedly having thrown the 3-year old last Lord Tarbeck down a well. And Arya's chapters leave us in no doubt as to his villainy. But even so, it got me thinking.

Half a hundred stabs? Sheesh. That is a lot, even for a raging arsehole like Lorch. Even if "the blood was in him". But maybe that's not all that was 'in him' at the time?

Now, the sack of King's Landing by the Lannisters is generally overshadowed by Gregor Clegane's brutal treatment of Elia and Prince Aegon, with Amory Lorch's  horrific murder a very close second. In turn, the Mountain's behaviour (raping the mother after smashing her babe's head against a wall) even overshadows that of Lorch, despite the fact that there is little to separate the two events in terms of brutality. So we usually just lump these horrific acts together under the heading of "Tywins's mad dogs behaving barbarically". Furthermore, subsequent events in ACOK or ASOS do nothing to persuade us that either Clegane or Lorch have any humanising features whatsoever. So we accept Tywin's explanation for what it is.

However, I think it is a mistake to do so, and it's possible we have been deliberately misdirected by George here.

Half a hundred thrusts?

This goes beyond the act of a sadistic man, in my opinion. It smacks of madness. Specifically, it reminds me of the kind of madness experienced by Thistle when her mind is under attack from the warg Varymyr Sixskins:

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He summoned all the strength still in him, leapt out of his own skin, and forced himself inside her.

Thistle arched her back and screamed.

Abomination. Was that her, or him, or Haggon? He never knew. His old flesh fell back into the snowdrift as her fingers loosened. The spearwife twisted violently, shrieking. His shadowcat used to fight him wildly, and the snow bear had gone half-mad for a time, snapping at trees and rocks and empty air, but this was worse. "Get out, get out!" he heard her own mouth shouting. Her body staggered, fell, and rose again, her hands flailed, her legs jerked this way and that in some grotesque dance as his spirit and her own fought for the flesh. She sucked down a mouthful of the frigid air, and Varamyr had half a heartbeat to glory in the taste of it and the strength of this young body before her teeth snapped together and filled his mouth with blood. She raised her hands to his face. He tried to push them down again, but the hands would not obey, and she was clawing at his eyes. Abomination, he remembered, drowning in blood and pain and madness. When he tried to scream, she spat their tongue out.

In death, the skinchanger's spirit desperately reaches out and seeks to forcibly warg into a nearby host. Is this what happened with Lorch and Rhaenys? When Lorch says the child wouldn't stop screaming, he may have meant she wouldn't stop screaming after he killed her. That kind of mind invasion would send a man into a blood frenzy, as we see with Thistle in the quote above. And this goes further to explain the "half a hundred thrusts" than merely having "the blood in him". But could Rhanenys have had latent warg powers? I feel that GRRM will never answer this, and it will remain a mystery.

Still, Varamyr was no Stark, and neither was Orell. Yet they had warg powers. This goes against all the 'only Starks can warg' arguments in the original thread. And we have seen that Rhaegar, in choosing Lyanna Stark for his wife, may have even desired a child with skinchanging ability as part of the prophecy he felt he had to fulfil. Which makes the fact that Rhaneys may have already been a warg somewhat bittersweet, if Rhaegar was unaware of her latent powers all along. 

This also, for me, supports the idea that Rhaenys' mind may have ended up in the kitten Balerion, after attempting and apparently failing to invade Lorch's mind. The broken remnants that entered the kitten would be similar to whatever of Orell remained in his eagle (a hatred of Jon Snow).

A loathing for Lannisters is all that remains of Rhaenys in that one-eared Tom: "He's the true king in this castle" says one character. Well, if Rhaenys were alive she would be the rightful heir to the Iron Throne, no? Possibly, this unresolved mystery may in fact be nothing more than a clue to Young Griff's identity as a true Aegon or a fake one.

[LongRider]

6 hours ago, Sandy Clegg said:

This goes against all the 'only Starks can warg' arguments in the original thread.

Well, warging is for direwolves, and skinchanging for other beasts.  That said, she may have had nascest skinchanging abilities and like Varamyr, tried to skinchange to control and stop Lorch.  If she had skinchanged the cat at times, her soul may very well have sought out Balerion the cat after her body's death.  

I like it!   

 

PS: I like your signature but every time I read it I see: The man who parses the sentence should swing the word.

 

[Sandy Clegg]

56 minutes ago, LongRider said:

PS: I like your signature but every time I read it I see: The man who parses the sentence should swing the word.

Swing the 'words' indeed! It's my mantra to keep looking out for examples of GRRM wordplay in ASOIAF. A bad habit which I'm trying to give up, to no avail 

[LongRider]

24 minutes ago, Sandy Clegg said:

Swing the 'words' indeed! It's my mantra to keep looking out for examples of GRRM wordplay in ASOIAF. A bad habit which I'm trying to give up, to no avail 

Don't stop, some fans like me are less likey to see them, so keep up the good words!

[Bowen Marsh]

A touching story if some part of Rhaenys still lives inside Balerion.  The Targaryens are not known for warging though.  The skill may have passed from her mother, Elia Martell.  Balerion is feral and mayhaps some part of the cat remembers what happened to the human that he loved.  He knows enough who murdered his human all those years ago. 

[Sandy Clegg]

50 minutes ago, Bowen Marsh said:

A touching story if some part of Rhaenys still lives inside Balerion.  The Targaryens are not known for warging though.  The skill may have passed from her mother, Elia Martell.  Balerion is feral and mayhaps some part of the cat remembers what happened to the human that he loved.  He knows enough who murdered his human all those years ago. 

True. I think the point with Varymyr and Orell is simply that ... humans are capable of warging (or rather skinchanging as we should be calling it as @LongRider rightly pointed out). And Rhaenys was certainly human. But it does seem out of character for a 'Southron', yes. 

Maybe we can trace some Martell blood up North somehow? I'd need to go and look up the family histories and see what comes up. 

[Lady Stonehearts Simp]

I’d rather she just be dead tbh. Living as a cat sounds awful

[Evolett]

Rhaenys naming her kitten Balerion is telling us something about her potential supernatural abilities but certainly not that she was a warg, imo. 

 

On 1/30/2023 at 3:14 PM, Sandy Clegg said:

In death, the skinchanger's spirit desperately reaches out and seeks to forcibly warg into a nearby host. Is this what happened with Lorch and Rhaenys? When Lorch says the child wouldn't stop screaming, he may have meant she wouldn't stop screaming after he killed her. That kind of mind invasion would send a man into a blood frenzy, as we see with Thistle in the quote above. And this goes further to explain the "half a hundred thrusts" than merely having "the blood in him". But could Rhanenys have had latent warg powers? I feel that GRRM will never answer this, and it will remain a mystery.

Just to touch on the above: Varamyr does not desperately reach out to seek and forcibly warg any nearby host. He previously has an internal debate on which of his wolves to spend his second life in and then hits upon the idea of taking over Thistle's body. It's the more attractive option because it means living on as a human rather than gradually dissipating in one of his wolves. So he makes a conscious decision to have a go at it. He did not have anything to lose either. He failed, but as we see, he simply sought out his wolf upon dying.

Why would Rhaenys choose her killer as a vessel for a second life? Is there anything in Lorch's subsequent behaviour that points to him being possessed by Rhaenys? He was a vicious character before and after this incident. Unless she was somehow wighted in the instant of dying, I don't see how she could have kept screaming after death either.

No, Rhaenys (or rather George) naming the kitten Balerion suggests Rhaenys was the blood of the dragon, possibly as capable of bonding and returning dragons to the Targaryens as Daenerys would later accomplish. I would argue that Amory Lorch is a symbolic member of Team Other, bent on preventing the return of Targaryen power. Recall his sigil is a manticore, the same deadly creature that the Sorrowful Man gifts Daenerys with in order to poison and kill her. 

Her insistent screaming should remind us of the scene in the fighting pit of Mereen, when Drogon is stabbed multiple times and both dragon and Daenerys scream in unison, indicative of the strong bond between them. Rhaegar probably already had his "promised princess" in Rhaenys. The cat being named Balerion hints at Rhaenys' dragon-bonding ability. 

The cat itself is always referred to as a tomcat, drumming it into us that it's a male cat. Balerion the tomcat is the "true king of the castle," the symbolic dragon ridden by Aegon the Conqueror, first king of the Targaryen dynasty, also the one who initiated the building of the Red Keep in the first place. Perhaps we are also to see Aegon's sister-wife Rhaenys in Rhaegar's daughter and maybe the manner of little Rhaenys' death is a clue to how the original Rhaenys really died.  

For those who enjoy wordplay, Moloch is one of the anagrams formed from ArmoryLorch. I don't think that's a coincidence. Moloch was a Cananite deity who demanded the most horrific of child sacrifices and this fits well with Lorch's frenzied killing of Rhaenys. 

[Darth Sidious]

Balerion is just a street smart city cat with a little attitude. 

[Frey family reunion]

On 1/30/2023 at 8:14 AM, Sandy Clegg said:

This also, for me, supports the idea that Rhaenys' mind may have ended up in the kitten Balerion, after attempting and apparently failing to invade Lorch's mind. The broken remnants that entered the kitten would be similar to whatever of Orell remained in his eagle (a hatred of Jon Snow).

I really like this theory.  It might also somewhat parallel Robb's death at the Red Wedding.  Where Robb may have tried to escape into his mother adding to her hysteria.  Or perhaps in an even more bizarre twist, escaping first to Grey Wind and then perhaps both their linked psyche's finally fleeing into Cat before her death.  If so Lady Stoneheart may be a resurected revenant containing the psyches of three minds, Cat, Robb and Grey Wind.

[Frey family reunion]

On 2/1/2023 at 9:59 AM, Evolett said:

Why would Rhaenys choose her killer as a vessel for a second life?

The possibility exists that out of desperation she tried to enter into him to stop him.

[Mourning Star]

I'm always a fan of a good cat theory!

I would add that there is an additional literary connection between the black tomcat and the Stark children.

The Red Keep was full of cats: lazy old cats dozing in the sun, cold-eyed mousers twitching their tails, quick little kittens with claws like needles, ladies' cats all combed and trusting, ragged shadows prowling the midden heaps. One by one Arya had chased them down and snatched them up and brought them proudly to Syrio Forel … all but this one, this one-eared black devil of a tomcat. "That's the real king of this castle right there," one of the gold cloaks had told her. "Older than sin and twice as mean. One time, the king was feasting the queen's father, and that black bastard hopped up on the table and snatched a roast quail right out of Lord Tywin's fingers. Robert laughed so hard he like to burst. You stay away from that one, child."

The cats of the Red Keep, described in this passage match up remarkably well with the Stark children (Jon and the children of Cat) and their wolves.

lazy old cats dozing in the sun - Bran and Summer

cold-eyed mousers twitching their tails - Robb and Grey Wind

quick little kittens with claws like needles - Arya, with her sword needle, and Nymeria

ladies' cats all combed and trusting - Sansa and Lady

ragged shadows prowling the midden heaps - Rickon and Shaggydog

this one-eared black devil of a tomcat. "That's the real king of this castle right there," - Jon and Ghost

As for the Sack of King's Landing and the death of Rhaenys, I think there are strong parallels to the Sack of Troy.

The Lannister Army "Trojan Horsing" its way into the city, the death of the old king Priam, the rape of Cassandra, the murder of the child Astyanax, and the killing of Polyxena.

And I think it's worth mentioning the story of Hecuba, wife of Priam, who in one tradition, after being captured, curses her captor and turns into a black dog.

"Rhaenys was a child too. Prince Rhaegar's daughter. A precious little thing, younger than your girls. She had a small black kitten she called Balerion, did you know? I always wondered what happened to him. Rhaenys liked to pretend he was the true Balerion, the Black Dread of old, but I imagine the Lannisters taught her the difference between a kitten and a dragon quick enough, the day they broke down her door." Varys gave a long weary sigh, the sigh of a man who carried all the sadness of the world in a sack upon his shoulders. "The High Septon once told me that as we sin, so do we suffer. If that's true, Lord Eddard, tell me … why is it always the innocents who suffer most, when you high lords play your game of thrones? Ponder it, if you would, while you wait upon the queen. And spare a thought for this as well: The next visitor who calls on you could bring you bread and cheese and the milk of the poppy for your pain … or he could bring you Sansa's head.

I think it is interesting that Dante, in Canto 30 of the Inferno, features Hecuba's madness after the fall of Troy, where she is reduced to barking like a dog.

"Do you deny that House Clegane was built upon dead children? I saw them lay Prince Aegon and Princess Rhaenys before the Iron Throne. By rights your arms should bear two bloody infants in place of those ugly dogs."

Getting back to Rhaenys's cat, it also appears a few other interesting times. First and most prominently, it leads Arya to overhearing Varys and Illyrio plotting. Then it also appears to Sansa:

The noise receded as she moved deeper into the castle, never daring to look back for fear that Joffrey might be watching . . . or worse, following. The serpentine steps twisted ahead, striped by bars of flickering light from the narrow windows above. Sansa was panting by the time she reached the top. She ran down a shadowy colonnade and pressed herself against a wall to catch her breath. When something brushed against her leg, she almost jumped out of her skin, but it was only a cat, a ragged black tom with a chewed-off ear. The creature spit at her and leapt away.
By the time she reached the godswood, the noises had faded to a faint rattle of steel and a distant shouting. Sansa pulled her cloak tighter. The air was rich with the smells of earth and leaf. Lady would have liked this place, she thought. There was something wild about a godswood; even here, in the heart of the castle at the heart of the city, you could feel the old gods watching with a thousand unseen eyes.
Sansa had favored her mother's gods over her father's. She loved the statues, the pictures in leaded glass, the fragrance of burning incense, the septons with their robes and crystals, the magical play of the rainbows over altars inlaid with mother-of-pearl and onyx and lapis lazuli. Yet she could not deny that the godswood had a certain power too. Especially by night. Help me, she prayed, send me a friend, a true knight to champion me . . .
She moved from tree to tree, feeling the roughness of the bark beneath her fingers. Leaves brushed at her cheeks. Had she come too late? He would not have left so soon, would he? Or had he even been here? Dare she risk calling out? It seemed so hushed and still here . . .

Is the cat warning Sansa? Is it leading her to Dontos and playing a part in Joff's death?

Does Rhaenys's cat hold a grudge against Tommen? Or is it possibly trying to save a child?

"The little queen gave them to him. She only meant to give him one, but he couldn't decide which one he liked the best."
Better than cutting them out of their mother with a dagger, I suppose. Margaery's clumsy attempts at seduction were so obvious as to be laughable. Tommen is too young for kisses, so she gives him kittens. Cersei rather wished they were not black, though. Black cats brought ill luck, as Rhaegar's little girl had discovered in this very castle. She would have been my daughter, if the Mad King had not played his cruel jape on Father. It had to have been the madness that led Aerys to refuse Lord Tywin's daughter and take his son instead, whilst marrying his own son to a feeble Dornish princess with black eyes and a flat chest.

I don't know if it's a ghost of Rhaenys in Balerion, but I do think there is more going on with the cat than first meets the eye!

The king seemed happier than Kevan Lannister had seen him in a long time. From soup to sweet Tommen burbled about the exploits of his kittens, whilst feeding them morsels of pike off his own royal plate. "The bad cat was outside my window last night," he informed Kevan at one point, "but Ser Pounce hissed at him and he ran off across the roofs."
"The bad cat?" Ser Kevan said, amused. He is a sweet boy.
"An old black tomcat with a torn ear," Cersei told him. "A filthy thing, and foul-tempered. He clawed Joff's hand once." She made a face. "The cats keep the rats down, I know, but that one … he's been known to attack ravens in the rookery."

Did the cat claw the same hand that Nymeria bit besides the trident? Is there a connection to his death? Are the rats a reference to Varys? What does it mean that the cat fights the ravens?

Lots of great speculation to be had!

[BRANDON GREYSTARK]

It seems kind of sad that Rhaenys choices were to either die as a child or to warg eventually become a tom cat .

[Sandy Clegg]

30 minutes ago, BRANDON GREYSTARK said:

It seems kind of sad that Rhaenys choices were to either die as a child or to warg eventually become a tom cat .

Well. At least the cat hasn’t been neutered (that we know of). So it could be worse …