Where Whores Go (maybe)

[Seams]

13 hours ago, Evolett said:

Like the peasant girls, Theon is “turned into a dog.” He lives and sleeps amongst the “girls,” fights them over food. He’s named Reek. He stinks to high heaven. He’s allowed no baths or change of clothes. While in the dungeons, he’s covered in his own filth. He brings us back to the “JOHN.” Before his ordeal began, like the classic “john - client” he enjoyed the local sex-workers and women in general.

This is a great insight.

After he catches and eats a live rat in the dungeon, his lowest point and very much a hound-like behavior, Theon is led out of the dungeon by the Walder Frey wards of Catelyn Stark. (I think Catelyn may be a central figure in the notion you highlight of the women who are abused but get to "come back as bitches.") Theon is dressed up as Theon again, but he doesn't feel like Theon until after he goes into the crypt with Lady Dustin and after he has an epiphany at the gods wood pond where he hears the raped and abused Jeyne Poole crying. 

At that point, he is taken into the circle of the spearwives, also known as the washer women. They are warriors disguised as camp followers: washer women who followed armies would make a living by washing clothes and, often, by becoming prostitutes. Thistle was also a spearwife. The washer woman all have tree and nature names: Frenya, Holly, Myrtle, Rowan, Squirrel, and Willow Witch-eye. 

A recent thought about a possible parallel between House Whent and JRR Tolkein's "Ent Wives" opened up a new line of thought about the symbolism of Catelyn's mother's blood line and the symbolic purpose of Harrenhal. But ents are sort of tree beings. In the washer women, GRRM is giving us a group of women who seem to be trees or nature people. I wonder whether there is a link between the mysteriously disappearing ent wives and the place where whores go? GRRM's variation on a theme by JRRT.

Your concluding paragraph about unsuccessful skinchanging may be a key to this set of symbols. Ramsay prefers the hunted women who fight back - they are permitted to come back as bitches; a different kind of second life. Maybe these warrior women surrounding Theon are reborn figures who were especially fierce in their previous lives.

I'm also thinking here of Catelyn's conversation with Brienne:

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"Knights die in battle," Catelyn reminded her.

Brienne looked at her with those blue and beautiful eyes. "As ladies die in childbed. No one sings songs about them."

"Children are a battle of a different sort." Catelyn started across the yard. "A battle without banners or warhorns, but no less fierce. Carrying a child, bringing it into the world . . . your mother will have told you of the pain . . ."

"I never knew my mother," Brienne said. "My father had ladies . . . a different lady every year, but . . ."

"Those were no ladies," Catelyn said. "As hard as birth can be, Brienne, what comes after is even harder. At times I feel as though I am being torn apart. Would that there were five of me, one for each child, so I might keep them all safe."

"And who would keep you safe, my lady?"

Clash, Catelyn VI

I wonder whether women who die in childbirth are part of this group of fierce women who come back as hunting dogs? We know that Catelyn will be reborn as Lady Stoneheart and that vengeance against the Freys will be her motivating force. She is protecting her children by taking out the people who threaten House Stark. 

Also interesting to note here that Catelyn makes an explicit distinction between ladies and non-ladies - perhaps the non-ladies are part of Tywin's broad category of whores. I wonder whether we need to figure out where ladies go in addition to discovering where whores go? Or do they go to the same place?

I have to admit, one of my clues for the importance of Mole's Town is an anagram: Lost Women. In addition to the fantastic detail about the entrance being a privy, we have this added clue about it being a place where missing women might be found. Maybe Rohanne Webber went there, too. But the name can also be anagramed to spell out "Two Lemons." Maybe Sansa's constant quest to find lemons links up to the lost women and Tyrion's search for Tysha.

 

Edited June 11, 2023 by Seams

[Evolett]

8 hours ago, Seams said:

(I think Catelyn may be a central figure in the notion you highlight of the women who are abused but get to "come back as bitches.") Theon is dressed up as Theon again, but he doesn't feel like Theon until after he goes into the crypt with Lady Dustin and after he has an epiphany at the gods wood pond where he hears the raped and abused Jeyne Poole crying. 

This is becoming even more interesting! Considering Theon's probably been castrated and "is no longer a man," that he's lived amongst the hounds / girls, has suffered a great deal of torture at the hands of Ramsay, and  joins the circle of spearwives as you've pointed out, could it be the new Theon will "come back as a bitch?" His ship was named "Sea Bitch." It could also be a reference to Asha who perfectly fits the image of women who might come back as bitches. Coming to think of it, with all her weeping and sobbing, poor Jeyne (fArya) is probably not in this category. She does not fulfill Ramsay's requirements for "good sport." The real Arya would though. Perhaps I'm not too far off with the idea that the "privy" may also represent a skinchanger's familiar animal as a place to take refuge.

I do see Mance's spearwives as a reflection of Ramsay's "girls" and of the whores going to the privy motif that @Sandy Clegg has figured out. When Melisandre tasks Mance with retrieving "the grey girl on the dying horse," supposedly Arya, he asks for spearwives from Mole's Town:

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“I will need horses. Half a dozen good ones. And this is nothing I can do alone. Some of the spearwives penned up at Mole’s Town should serve. Women would be best for this. 

So we're back  to the privy again. 

 

8 hours ago, Seams said:

Thistle was also a spearwife. The washer woman all have tree and nature names: Frenya, Holly, Myrtle, Rowan, Squirrel, and Willow Witch-eye. 

A recent thought about a possible parallel between House Whent and JRR Tolkein's "Ent Wives" opened up a new line of thought about the symbolism of Catelyn's mother's blood line and the symbolic purpose of Harrenhal. But ents are sort of tree beings. In the washer women, GRRM is giving us a group of women who seem to be trees or nature people. I wonder whether there is a link between the mysteriously disappearing ent wives and the place where whores go? GRRM's variation on a theme by JRRT.

I have not considered the Whents as "Ent Wives" but now that you mention this, the spearwives /washerwomen with their nature names remind me of Asha recalling this legend of the CotF during the battle against Stannis at Deepwood Motte, when she realizes the Northmen are disguised as trees:

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The woods were on the move, creeping toward the castle like a slow green tide. She thought back to a tale she had heard as a child, about the children of the forest and their battles with the First Men, when the greenseers turned the trees to warriors.

I'm not sure if GRRM would go for trees actually becoming mobile but I can see the spirits of these warrior women going into the trees. That fits in with what we know about the beliefs of the CotF so far. If the Pink Letter was written by Ramsay and the spearwives were really captured and flayed, they would have suffered a death as horrible the peasant girls. Instead of being "reincarnated" as hounds, they become nature spirits capable of intervening in the real world?  Mance supplied the names of the women he wanted from Mole's Town. He says "young and pretty" but it's more likely they had key important characteristics he felt would be useful to his mission. One of the spearwives is named "Willow Witch-Eye." Maybe a clue.

My memory of Mole's Town and what happens there is a bit fuzzy. Think I need a reread.

Edited June 11, 2023 by Evolett

[Sandy Clegg]

9 hours ago, Evolett said:

So we're back  to the privy again

If you’re determined to go down the Molestown route, then there is some extra imagery that would serve. Going to the brothel is said to be looking for ‘buried treasure’ by the men of the Nights Watch. So if you read the brothel as being privy-coded, then the ‘Tywin Lannister shits gold’ motif could be a connection. 
 

Moles as in ‘skin marks’ could also point to freckles as a connection, especially as the first whore we meet in the first book has them prominently:

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the better brothels could always find a virgin, if the purse was fat enough. She had light red hair and a powdering of freckles across the bridge of her nose, and when she slipped free a breast to give her nipple to the babe, he saw that her bosom was freckled as well.

'Powdering' is a notable word choice perhaps - not a 'sprinkling' or 'dusting' or 'smattering' of freckles. 

Of course, ‘to powder one’s nose’ is yet another toilet euphemism. Not sure if this has much deeper significance, though. I just recalled it when I read the Molestown posts.

Edited June 12, 2023 by Sandy Clegg

[LongRider]

6 hours ago, Sandy Clegg said:

Of course, ‘to powder one’s nose’ is yet another toilet euphemism. Not sure if this has much deeper significance, though. I just recalled it when I read the Molestown posts.

"The powder room" is used as a euphemism for toilet.

[Evolett]

16 hours ago, Sandy Clegg said:

If you’re determined to go down the Molestown route, then there is some extra imagery that would serve. Going to the brothel is said to be looking for ‘buried treasure’ by the men of the Nights Watch. So if you read the brothel as being privy-coded, then the ‘Tywin Lannister shits gold’ motif could be a connection. 

It's fun spinning things further, especially when the OP offers refreshing insights .

Yes, treasure buried in a latrine assoicated place might be a connection. And one could also say Mole's Town leads us again to Jon /john. Though Jon rejects seeking the services of sex workers at Mole's Town, he and Waymar are the only 2 characters linked to moleskin.

16 hours ago, Sandy Clegg said:

Moles as in ‘skin marks’ could also point to freckles as a connection, especially as the first whore we meet in the first book has them prominently:

My gut feeling is there's an underlying motif to the mole references. "Mole" can be interpreted in a number of different ways and there is the possible wordplay to consider as well. Take moles as in "skin marks" - mole skin or moles kin amongst other possibilites. Jon has no moles or natural skin marks that we know of but it's interesting that Nestor Royce, cousin once removed to Waymar, bears a mole (according to Sweetrobin).  

Jon didn't  go looking for "buried treasure" in Mole's Town but he found buried treasure in the form of the hidden cache of dragonglass and the horn:

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When he pulled it free, whatever was inside shifted and clinked. Treasure, he thought, but the shapes were wrong to be coins, and the sound was wrong for metal.

Dragonglass as treasure? Is there a connection to the john as in privy as well? Perhaps. Obisdian forms from cooled lava flows. Lav?

There's also Tyrion of the sewers and privy who becomes the vastly rich Yezzan of Yunkai's special "treasure". 

 

 

 

 

Edited June 12, 2023 by Evolett

[Sandy Clegg]

On 6/13/2023 at 12:19 AM, Evolett said:

There's also Tyrion of the sewers and privy who becomes the vastly rich Yezzan of Yunkai's special "treasure". 

Dwarfs and sanitation also crop up in the end of the Mystery Knight as Dunk's sudden brainwave at guessing the solution to the mystery - a dwarf climbing up the privy shaft - so dwarfs / privy shafts are definitely something GRRM wants us to think about. 

Cersei also wishes to cast Tyrion's head in bronze, and have it "kept it in her chamber pot". And the Second Sons initially want to cut his head off and chuck the rest of him in a latrine:

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The jackanapes in the slashed pink doublet hissed. "They've brought the sickness amongst us. Into our very tents." He turned to Ben Plumm. "Shall I cut his head off, Captain? We can toss the rest in a latrine pit." He drew a sword, a slender bravo's blade with a jeweled hilt.

"Do be careful with my head," said Tyrion. "You don't want to get any of my blood on you. Blood carries the disease. And you'll want to boil our clothes, or burn them." - ADWD, Tyrion XI

Tyrion puts a tax on women's 'privy purses', and this is know as the dwarf's penny of course. And a penny is found beneath the chamber pot belonging to Rogen (Varys). There's a lot to unpick in this theme.

[Back in Black-Snow]

This (all of it) is why the George considers himself a gardner (wink, wink) and why it takes so long to finish his work. There is another story/puzzle that's taking place under the main story/puzzle.

And he can't simply just throw it in the privy in order to finish the one we all want. Artistic integrity and all that.

[Sandy Clegg]

On 9/23/2023 at 3:23 PM, Back in Black-Snow said:

There is another story/puzzle that's taking place under the main story/puzzle.

I've tied myself in enough knots trying to establish whether this is the case or not. Some days it feels like there has to be a game of sorts lurking within the text. Other days it just feels like it would be too much effort for an author to go to such lengths. Then I remind myself that Kit Williams' Masquerade was a thing, and then that idea doesn't seem so far-fetched.

[SaffronLady]

Has the whores = horse line of thought been brought up already?

[Seams]

6 hours ago, SaffronLady said:

Has the whores = horse line of thought been brought up already?

 

[Takiedevushkikakzvezdy]

6 hours ago, SaffronLady said:

Has the whores = horse line of thought been brought up already?

As a non-native English speaker, I never even considered that one. The phrase "Putting the cart before the horse" takes on a whole new meaning now.

[Sandy Clegg]

On 10/11/2023 at 3:33 PM, Seams said:

Has the whores = horse line of thought been brought up already?

I've certainly considered it. However I feel it might, maybe, just more likely be a coincidence. Once we start analysing all the words we're going to brush up against homophones etc. It really all depends on GRRM's personal taste for this kind of stuff. But I think once GRRM decides to use the whore/hoar homophone (which I think he does), then he's less likely to muddy the waters by using a whores/horse homophone.

On a separate note, I just realised that GRRM has used the word john in reference to "one who visits prostitutes" when he talked about "book Shae" as opposed to her TV counterpart, on a commentary track for one of the seasons:

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"Shae is a camp follower. She has no real affection for Tyrion. He's just a john in the books. Her persona is very much... a sex kitten I guess."

GRRM using the phrase 'sex kitten' also makes me kind of grin. He's a child of the sixties I guess 

Edited February 26 by Sandy Clegg

[Angel Eyes]

On 10/11/2023 at 10:33 AM, Seams said:

 

Perhaps Tywin gave Tysha to the horses. Being Mr. Hand and all.

Edited February 26 by Angel Eyes