What's the point of the RGB color clues?

[Jon Fossoway]

Sunlight basically creates a rainbow when it interacts with rain and light rain. The sun is, of course, Renly. Loras literally compares him to the sun (in a personal fashion, sure; but being Loras one of the Guard makes it the more tragic of a love story). When Renly dies, the Rainbow Guard vanishes.

At first, I thought it was a way Renly had to simply mock the Kingsguard (I never took it as a 'homosexual cue', since that kind of saying doesn't exist in ASOIAF inworld) but he does take the Rainbow Guard seriously. I do think Renly thought highly of himself. 

Edited April 5, 2023 by Jon Fossoway

[Craving Peaches]

1 hour ago, Jon Fossoway said:

At first, I thought it was a way Renly had to simply mock the Kingsguard (I never took it as a 'homosexual cue', since that kind of saying doesn't exist in ASOIAF inworld) but he does take the Rainbow Guard seriously. I do think Renly thought highly of himself. 

I think GRRM said that the rainbow is supposed to link to the FotS.

[GZ Bloodraven]

On 2/5/2023 at 4:51 AM, Phylum of Alexandria said:

• There's the Red Fork, Green Fork, and Blue Fork of the Trident.
• There's the red, green, and blue triskelion design of House Massey's sigil.
• There's the terrain squares of the cyvasse board, made from carnelian, jade, and lapis lazuli.
• And there are the infamous Muppet names in House Tully: Elmo, Kermit, Oscar, and Grover.

For these specifically:

The Forks are likely about Red House Lannister in the Westerlands, Blue House Tully in the Riverlands, and Grey-Green House Reed in the Neck.

House Massey was founded around the seventh Durrandon king, so they are one of the oldest consistent houses in Westeros. For them to use the triskelion (a symbol associated with Irish death (though George isn't doing that intentionally obviously) of the fire, ice, green trichotomy, helped out by Durrandon the Ravenfriend, 9 generations descended from the sea god and wind goddess, suggests some connection to the very magic you're talking about.

Cyvasse seems like a new game? It just reached Dorne in the past couple years via the Greenblood: to think that a dominant Lysene and Volantene game hadn't made it across the narrow sea in the 300 years of conflict with the Triarchy is weird to me. And yet the dragon is the most powerful piece, though all dragons are dead. Maybe the creator of cyvasse knows more about the wars to come and made the fancy version of his game reflect this? Or that's just nice colors for rich folks to use. But in Tyrion's Winds chapter, the cyvasse dragon is coated red with blood...who knows. 

The colors of the muppets I don't think factors into George's use of their names lmao.

[three-eyed monkey]

One of the red, blue, green motifs that is harder to notice is Davos, the Onion Knight. He's a red onion now, sworn to Stannis who is connected to the Red God, but red onions turn blue in time, and I suspect Davos will end up being a green onion because green onions are spring onions.

[Sandy Clegg]

Lots of good points here. My two pence as follows.

There may be multiple layers to these three-colour symbols, but I think it’s the Riverland Muppets that should give us a clue as to how we are meant to sequence them. Colours are matched to relevant muppets/Sesame St characters (if you’ve never seen it - shame on thee!)  So…

1. Grover (blue) Tully was the grandfather

2. Elmo (red) was his son

3. Kermit (green) the grandson.

I have my suspicions that these may reflect the ages of three of our main Stark players in the game. Jon (eldest), then Arya then of course Bran, descending in age.  This would give the colours matching thus:

Jon = blue. Wights and cold magic.

Arya = red. Blood and assassination.

Bran = green. Trees + greenseeing.

Edited April 6, 2023 by Sandy Clegg

[Phylum of Alexandria]

11 hours ago, GZ Bloodraven said:

For these specifically:

The Forks are likely about Red House Lannister in the Westerlands, Blue House Tully in the Riverlands, and Grey-Green House Reed in the Neck.

I don't know if those color associations work for the houses you list other than Reed. If House Lannister is red because of their red and gold sigil, House Tully should be both blue and red because of their blue and red sigil. Not to mention Riverrun is on the Red Fork of the Trident. I don't deny that color symbolism is used in many ways throughout in the story, not least in sigil color combinations, but I don't think that the Fork colors are simple house correspondences.

11 hours ago, GZ Bloodraven said:

House Massey was founded around the seventh Durrandon king, so they are one of the oldest consistent houses in Westeros. For them to use the triskelion (a symbol associated with Irish death (though George isn't doing that intentionally obviously) of the fire, ice, green trichotomy, helped out by Durrandon the Ravenfriend, 9 generations descended from the sea god and wind goddess, suggests some connection to the very magic you're talking about.

Interesting. Admittedly, I haven't put much of my focus on House Massey. I'll have to check out whats' written about them.

11 hours ago, GZ Bloodraven said:

Cyvasse seems like a new game? It just reached Dorne in the past couple years via the Greenblood: to think that a dominant Lysene and Volantene game hadn't made it across the narrow sea in the 300 years of conflict with the Triarchy is weird to me. And yet the dragon is the most powerful piece, though all dragons are dead. Maybe the creator of cyvasse knows more about the wars to come and made the fancy version of his game reflect this? Or that's just nice colors for rich folks to use. But in Tyrion's Winds chapter, the cyvasse dragon is coated red with blood...who knows. 

Like color writing in general, I'm sure GRRM can use cyvasse to serve multiple symbolic purposes. I didn't want to frontload my own thoughts of cyvasse for this particular topic post on RGB, since I was interested in what others thought of the color trios. But I do happen to think that cyvasse holds the symbolic key to the nature of magic in GRRM's story. I wrote about it here:

As for its history, it does seem a little odd that cyvasse wouldn't have had more of presence among the Western nobility given that global trade seems to be quite active at this point.

11 hours ago, GZ Bloodraven said:

The colors of the muppets I don't think factors into George's use of their names lmao.

Well, I admit it's just my conjecture. GRRM can prove me wrong in a stroke by writing about Fozzie, Scooter, or Beaker Tully. And hey, I'll take that hit if it means getting TWOW any time soon.

Though if it does end up being simply an indulgent name drop with no further purpose served, I will conclude that GRRM had sullied his house of Tully for a rather childish whim. Yet if there's some sort of hint being pushed by the names, such as the color trio I observed in the ones mentioned so far, then I can take their inclusion in the story as a cheeky but nevertheless understandable authorial decision.

[Phylum of Alexandria]

41 minutes ago, Sandy Clegg said:

Lots of good points here. My two pence as follows.

There may be multiple layers to these three-colour symbols, but I think it’s the Riverland Muppets that should give us a clue as to how we are meant to sequence them. Colours are matched to relevant muppets/Sesame St characters (if you’ve never seen it - shame on thee!)  So…

1. Grover (blue) Tully was the grandfather

2. Elmo (red) was his son

3. Kermit (green) the grandson.

I have my suspicions that these may reflect the ages of three of our main Stark players in the game. Jon (eldest), then Arya then of course Bran, descending in age.  This would give the colours matching thus:

Jon = blue. Wights and cold magic.

Arya = red. Blood and assassination.

Bran = green. Trees + greenseeing.

I've had similar thoughts, but I didn't come to anything I found really promising. I also thought maybe the spatial layout of the Trident could lend a clue, but in that case the Blue Fork is the middle fork, and the Green does not stem from the Red.

If the Trident really is a symbol for psi magic as Evolett has suggested, perhaps we should reminds ourselves of Bloodraven's remark that for the Old Gods time is not a river. Maybe we shouldn't expect a linear flow in that sense?

 

[Sandy Clegg]

42 minutes ago, Phylum of Alexandria said:

I also thought maybe the spatial layout of the Trident could lend a clue, but in that case the Blue Fork is the middle fork, and the Green does not stem from the Red.

Well, perhaps we should ignore their spatial relationship and look at where/how the forks of the river flow.

• The blue fork is by far the shortest, and ends at Oldstones, the seat of ancient kings (House Mudd, symbolised by a golden crown). Jon's life looks to be cut short sooner than the others, and may have royal symbolism (hidden in the mud).
• The green fork heads North. It passes through the Twins before entering the swampy lands of the Neck. The Twins could symbolise Bran's encounter with Cersei and Jaime leading to his fall, but I suspect this may allude to something in a future book. Could Bran's timeline actually diverge at some point due to his meddling in time, and we are faced with 'two Brans' having to somehow battle each other? This would fit thematically with a lot of the imagery we find throughout the books. The heart in conflict with itself, etc. George may here have been inspired by an Italo Calvino fantasy series: The Baron in the Trees, The Cloven Viscount and the Non-existent Knight. The first has clear Bran symbolism. The second story deals with a knight who is chopped in half by a cannonball and becomes two separate viscounts, one good and one bad. So maybe George has something like this in mind for Bran, but - pure speculation obviously.
• The red fork is more meandering, so perhaps this reflects Arya's more 'globe-trotting' story? It also passes through many places she has already visited. I'd need to reflect on this a little more, but the key element may be it's length, suggesting Arya's journey and story may be the longest of all.

Just some random thoughts really, I haven't got any concrete theories or preferences yet.

 

[Springwatch]

1 hour ago, Phylum of Alexandria said:

If the Trident really is a symbol for psi magic as Evolett has suggested, perhaps we should reminds ourselves of Bloodraven's remark that for the Old Gods time is not a river. Maybe we shouldn't expect a linear flow in that sense?

Time is a river for humans though. The most significant battles happen at rivers. Major characters are always falling in and out of rivers. Tyrion even experiences a time slip on the Rhoyne.

[John Suburbs]

On 2/5/2023 at 7:51 AM, Phylum of Alexandria said:

For reasons still unclear, GRRM has peppered in his story relating to Red-Green-Blue color trios.

• There's the Red Fork, Green Fork, and Blue Fork of the Trident.
• There's the red, green, and blue triskelion design of House Massey's sigil.
• There's the terrain squares of the cyvasse board, made from carnelian, jade, and lapis lazuli.
• And there are the infamous Muppet names in House Tully: Elmo, Kermit, Oscar, and Grover.

There might be more of these that have not been found yet. But it seems clear to me that he's leaving some sort of clue. But for what?

What the red, green, and blue colors immediately called to my mind at first are some types of magic in the story. There's ice, fire, and the magic of the greenseers.

These three magics do seem the most thematically important for ASOIAF: the three linked to ecology and the story's building premise of averting or bringing on some coming devastation. 

But here's the thing: the Fire, Ice, and Greenseeing factions of magic are as clear as day in the story itself. There is no need for GRRM to drop hints in the worldbuilding details to suggest to readers something that's already quite obvious.

So what is the point of peppering the story with RGB color trios?

(and if you wish to also consider my topic post question about the secrets of ice, fire, and greenseeing, that's of course welcome. I myself tend to consider them together)

Red, green and blue are the primary colors. All other colors are derived from combining them. To me, this suggests that ice, fire and the magic of the greenseers (call it earth magic, or life magic) are the basis for all other magic in this world: shadow, blood, water, etc.

But what's really interesting is that the tale is only a song of ice and fire. So what role, if any, will the greenseers play in the end?

[Phylum of Alexandria]

39 minutes ago, John Suburbs said:

Red, green and blue are the primary colors. All other colors are derived from combining them. To me, this suggests that ice, fire and the magic of the greenseers (call it earth magic, or life magic) are the basis for all other magic in this world: shadow, blood, water, etc.

But what's really interesting is that the tale is only a song of ice and fire. So what role, if any, will the greenseers play in the end?

Green isn't a primary color as far as art and painting are concerned, but Red, Green, and Blue are indeed the foundational colors of human visual perception.

I have toyed with the idea that other prominent colors in the ASOIAF story speak to the relative dominance or recession of those three colors, like in RGB color space. For instance, indigo has an RGB value of 50% Red, 0% Green, and 100% Blue. But I don't know what that would actually refer to narratively speaking. Indigo is prominent in the House of the Undying, and Rhaegar's eyes were indigo. Why would full-power blue and half-power red be relevant in those examples narratively speaking?

I still haven't fully given up on the idea, but my feeling is it probably won't lead to anything substantive.

[Mourning Star]

4 hours ago, Phylum of Alexandria said:

Though if it does end up being simply an indulgent name drop with no further purpose served, I will conclude that GRRM had sullied his house of Tully for a rather childish whim.

And here I thought it was because all the members of house Tully, the black fish of the family excepted, are a bunch of muppets.

[GZ Bloodraven]

7 hours ago, Phylum of Alexandria said:

I don't know if those color associations work for the houses you list other than Reed. If House Lannister is red because of their red and gold sigil, House Tully should be both blue and red because of their blue and red sigil. Not to mention Riverrun is on the Red Fork of the Trident. I don't deny that color symbolism is used in many ways throughout in the story, not least in sigil color combinations, but I don't think that the Fork colors are simple house correspondences.

Maybe the Red and Blue Fork are both for House Tully then.

[John Suburbs]

23 hours ago, Phylum of Alexandria said:

Green isn't a primary color as far as art and painting are concerned, but Red, Green, and Blue are indeed the foundational colors of human visual perception.

I have toyed with the idea that other prominent colors in the ASOIAF story speak to the relative dominance or recession of those three colors, like in RGB color space. For instance, indigo has an RGB value of 50% Red, 0% Green, and 100% Blue. But I don't know what that would actually refer to narratively speaking. Indigo is prominent in the House of the Undying, and Rhaegar's eyes were indigo. Why would full-power blue and half-power red be relevant in those examples narratively speaking?

I still haven't fully given up on the idea, but my feeling is it probably won't lead to anything substantive.

Also interesting as that the faith of the seven holds that all seven deities are separate aspects of one god. They use rainbows and seven-colored stars in their symbology, and their dress and liturgy feature prisms that cast rainbows about the septs. Rainbows are seen primarily as seven colors, ROYGBIV, and they are all derived from one combined white light.

[Phylum of Alexandria]

43 minutes ago, John Suburbs said:

Also interesting as that the faith of the seven holds that all seven deities are separate aspects of one god. They use rainbows and seven-colored stars in their symbology, and their dress and liturgy feature prisms that cast rainbows about the septs. Rainbows are seen primarily as seven colors, ROYGBIV, and they are all derived from one combined white light.

Yup! The main reason I brought up indigo is the curiosity of Renly's Rainbow Guard. Renly had seven guards, one for every color, presumably in the tradition of the Faith of the Seven. But one color is not given full representation. Instead, Loras was adorned with the full rainbow. There is no indigo guard, possibly because this color represents the Stranger.

In any event, the Stranger does come to Renly in the form of a shadow assassin, in the same chapter where Catelyn sees the Stranger depicted as a shadow.

Looking through ACOK I thought it interesting that 6 of the 8 mentions of indigo in that book occur in the House of the Undying, most of which describe the light coming from the corrupted heart that powers the Undying.

In other words, Mel's shadow magic, learned in the Shadowlands beyond Assai, is linked symbolically to the Shade of the Evening trees. Crowfood's Daughter has pointed out that the forests of Ulthos near Asshai look suspiciously like Shade-of-the Evening trees, and the oily black stone that covers Asshai could easily be petrified Shade tree, itself having black and oily attributes.

Asshai is now but a corrupted shadow of the once-great Dawn empire. The dawn light faded into an indigo sunset, the lights guttered out, and everything turned, as Renly said before dying: "cold."

I do happen to think that this destruction was the weakening of one major prong on the magical Trident. Note that the Fishfoot statue has Garth-like attributes to it, but also has a trident with one prong broken. And he himself is a statue, in a petrified state. The text doesn't say which prong was broken off, though. My guess, given his green Garth attributes, is the Green Fork. 

 

[Mourning Star]

30 minutes ago, Phylum of Alexandria said:

I do happen to think that this destruction was the weakening of one major prong on the magical Trident. Note that the Fishfoot statue has Garth-like attributes to it, but also has a trident with one prong broken. And he himself is a statue, in a petrified state. The text doesn't say which prong was broken off, though. My guess, given his green Garth attributes, is the Green Fork. 

Not sure if it is relevant, but the headwaters of the Green Fork are the marshes of the Neck, which was mayhaps (nearly) broken by the hammer of the waters. If The Bite had never been taken out of Westeros, is it possible the green fork of the trident would have been fed by the White Knife, which in turn begins at Long Lake? And from there, well...

It has long been held that they did this for protection from predators such as direwolves or shadowcats, which their simple stone weapons—and even their vaunted greenseers—were not proof against. But other sources dispute this, stating that their greatest foes were the giants, as hinted at in tales told in the North, and as possibly proved by Maester Kennet in the study of a barrow near the Long Lake—a giant's burial with obsidian arrowheads found amidst the extant ribs. It brings to mind a transcription of a wildling song in Maester Herryk's History of the Kings-Beyond-the-Wall, regarding the brothers Gendel and Gorne. They were called upon to mediate a dispute between a clan of children and a family of giants over the possession of a cavern. Gendel and Gorne, it is said, ultimately resolved the matter through trickery, making both sides disavow any desire for the cavern, after the brothers discovered it was a part of a greater chain of caverns that eventually passed beneath the Wall. But considering that the wildlings have no letters, their traditions must be looked at with a jaundiced eye. 

The beasts of the woods and the giants were eventually joined by other, greater dangers, however.

 

Edited April 7, 2023 by Mourning Star

[Sandy Clegg]

On 2/5/2023 at 12:51 PM, Phylum of Alexandria said:

There's the terrain squares of the cyvasse board, made from carnelian, jade, and lapis lazuli.

George used to be ranked one level below Chess Master and was president of his college chess club, so this may be a useful avenue for clues. 

One of the weird things about the world of chess is the existence of Chess Variants.

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_chess_variants

They involve changing some of the rules, pieces, or board layout of traditional chess, e.g. a piece called a Princess who can move like a knight or a bishop. There are many, many variants of chess and it's possible George knows about some of them or was at least curious enough to learn something about them. This brings us to:

Dragon Chess

This was invented by Gary Gygax, co-founder of Dungeons & Dragons (which George is also a fan of, so this increases the chance of him being aware of it perhaps). And in this variant, there are three chess boards (like Star Trek's 3D chess) each with different colours:

The Dragonchess game board consists of three 12×8 chess boards stacked vertically.

• the upper board (blue and white) represents the air
• the middle board (green and amber) represents the land 
• the lower board (red and brown) is the subterranean world.

if you follow the Wikipedia link here you'll see that the boards very clearly look overall blue, green and red. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragonchess

And yes, one of the pieces is a dragon. There are also griffons, I believe!

Edited September 19, 2023 by Sandy Clegg

[Phylum of Alexandria]

4 hours ago, Sandy Clegg said:

George used to be ranked one level below Chess Master and was president of his college chess club, so this may be a useful avenue for clues. 

One of the weird things about the world of chess is the existence of Chess Variants.

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_chess_variants

They involve changing some of the rules, pieces, or board layout of traditional chess, e.g. a piece called a Princess who can move like a knight or a bishop. There are many, many variants of chess and it's possible George knows about some of them or was at least curious enough to learn something about them. This brings us to:

Dragon Chess

This was invented by Gary Gygax, co-founder of Dungeons & Dragons (which George is also a fan of, so this increases the chance of him being aware of it perhaps). And in this variant, there are three chess boards (like Star Trek's 3D chess) each with different colours:

The Dragonchess game board consists of three 12×8 chess boards stacked vertically.

• the upper board (blue and white) represents the air
• the middle board (green and amber) represents the land 
• the lower board (red and brown) is the subterranean world.

if you follow the Wikipedia link here you'll see that the boards very clearly look overall blue, green and red. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragonchess

And yes, one of the pieces is a dragon. There are also griffons, I believe!

Very interesting.

Yes, chess is very important to some of GRRM's earlier works, so I would not be surprised if the presence of cyvasse holds a deeper, more foundational meaning within ASOIAF's magical plot.

I don't think I've heard of dragon chess. There was some other topic post of mine where someone brought up an older, very elaborate variation of chess that was similarly intriguing for its color codes and pieces. Forget which topic that was though.

The notion of the three colors reflecting different terrains jives with my Landkings hypothesis, but the specific assignment of elevation does not. However, @Springwatch had some thoughts in that thread that were somewhat similar:

On 1/12/2023 at 9:14 AM, Springwatch said:

This looks right for the game itself.

The world is bit different though. Westeros is described as the green lands, usually by the people who want to invade it (Ironborn definitely, but also Dany I think). It's the temperate zone I think, Renly's summer kingdom.

Red is defined by the Red Waste, Astapor and probably Valyria - the lands of consuming fire.

Blue is occasionally sea or ice, but my impression is it's most connected to the sky - sky-blue silks, the blue calling to prisoners of the Sky Cells, hawk skinchangers mesmerised by the blue sky.

This suggests an up-down perspective - blue above and red below. I like this - Mel & Stannis don't climb a volcano at Dragonstone to see its hot red fire; they descend. Valyrian miners too. Red is the lowest level of Meereen's fighting pit too. Characters who climb find ice and sky.

I think the association is more about the temperatures of various terrains than it is elevation, but I can agree to some extent that there are some such associations in the story. The cold Eyrie, for instance, being associated with the white and blue of House Arryn. And the notion that wyrms and dragons come from the underground "furnaces of the world," such as the Fourteen Flames. 

Maybe what we're talking about is the relative elevation of the "king" piece of each magical line? Weirwoods are rooted in the earth near the surface, the deep pockets of fire likely house the king of Team Elmo. Does that mean that the king in the Heart of Winter is in the sky?

I lean towards no, but it's a thought. #LetsGoTeamIceDragonJust ForTheHeckOfIt

[Springwatch]

On 9/19/2023 at 3:55 PM, Phylum of Alexandria said:

I think the association is more about the temperatures of various terrains than it is elevation, but I can agree to some extent that there are some such associations in the story. The cold Eyrie, for instance, being associated with the white and blue of House Arryn. And the notion that wyrms and dragons come from the underground "furnaces of the world," such as the Fourteen Flames. 

The associations are there, but you might be interested in this thread: the seven hells seem to follow their own rules.

https://asoiaf.westeros.org/index.php?/topic/153005-frozen-hell/

ETA

Heaven is a strange place too:

Quote

So many stars, he thought as he trudged up the slope through pines and firs and ash. Maester Luwin had taught him his stars as a boy in Winterfell; he had learned the names of the twelve houses of heaven and the rulers of each; he could find the seven wanderers sacred to the Faith; he was old friends with the Ice Dragon, the Shadowcat, the Moonmaid, and the Sword of the Morning. All those he shared with Ygritte, but not some of the others. We look up at the same stars, and see such different things. The King's Crown was the Cradle, to hear her tell it; the Stallion was the Horned Lord; the red wanderer that septons preached was sacred to their Smith up here was called the Thief. And when the Thief was in the Moonmaid, that was a propitious time for a man to steal a woman, Ygritte insisted.

 

Edited September 21, 2023 by Springwatch