Theory amnesty time

[Sandy Clegg]

Let's have a complete amnesty on the dumbest thing you personally ever came up with, only to reject soon afterwards in the cold light of day. No shaming, no guilt, no regrets!

As I've mentioned elsewhere, I once spent a good few days absolutely convinced that all the characters were dogs who thought they were human. No substances were involved, before anyone asks 

And please ... Cheap shots at e.g. Jojenpaste, lemongate or R+L=J are not the point of this thread (for once).

[Craving Peaches]

Renly is in the House of the Undying in Qarth.

Quote

"We have knowledge to share with you," said a warrior in shining emerald armor, "and magic weapons to arm you with. You have passed every trial. Now come and sit with us, and all your questions shall be answered."

. . .

[Craving Peaches]

All of my 'theories' that are just wishful thinking: Ned is alive, Renly is alive, Raynald Westerling is alive, Domeric is alive, etc.

[LongRider]

When still a noob I figured out that the gravedigger on the QI was Sandor.  Hoo wee did I think I was something special, till I realized that that was not only an old theory, but also the most simple and easiest one to figure out. 
Good thing I decided to research it on the board before I boasted about my great discovery and totally embarrassed myself. 

 

 

[kissdbyfire]

Illyrio Mopatis is a faceless man. Though if I’m honest, I haven’t thoroughly chucked that crazy notion in the bin of dead theories just yet.

[Gilbert Green]

Minerva McGonagall is evil; is a Death Eater; is in league with Voldemort; is a multi-animagus who can become cat, owl or serpent; and is Nagini is one of her many animagus forms.

Edited July 17, 2023 by Gilbert Green

[Aebram]

4 hours ago, kissdbyfire said:

Illyrio Mopatis is a faceless man. Though if I’m honest, I haven’t thoroughly chucked that crazy notion in the bin of dead theories just yet.

I've wondered about that myself. The text mentions repeatedly that he is surprisingly light on his feet for someone so grossly fat. So I can't help wondering if he's actually a thinner man using some type of glamor.

[Loose Bolt]

Usually I type this near Xmas but my funny theory is that Varys is Santa and Others were his elves until they rebelled. After all V knows who is naughty or nice and he really has to use some supernatural means like chimneys and his sledge to be able to move around so easily and quickly.

[Maegor_the_Cool]

Arthur Dayne is alive in the Neck with Ashara and Howland. 
 

Howland + Ashara is already a reach, but having Arthur there is even further.

[Nevets]

Arya is a bastard.  She does look different from her siblings, and I figured Jon telling her she was trueborn was really a hint that she wasn't (irony and all that).  I tried out different combinations of parents but couldn't get anything to work so I eventually gave it up.

Edited July 18, 2023 by Nevets

[Nevets]

2 hours ago, Jon Snowfyre said:

Arthur Dayne is alive in the Neck with Ashara and Howland. 
 

Howland + Ashara is already a reach, but having Arthur there is even further.

If I see much more of this I'm going to start thinking that "only two survived to ride away", and the rest of them all walked.

[Sandy Clegg]

3 hours ago, Nevets said:

If I see much more of this I'm going to start thinking that "only two survived to ride away", and the rest of them all walked.

Indeed, why not 'flew' away?  

[Sandy Clegg]

7 hours ago, Loose Bolt said:

Usually I type this near Xmas but my funny theory is that Varys is Santa and Others were his elves until they rebelled. After all V knows who is naughty or nice and he really has to use some supernatural means like chimneys and his sledge to be able to move around so easily and quickly.

"I know, I know, ho- ho-ho". Clearly it's Patchface who is Santa. He even has antlers. Green and red motley = Christmas colours. It all makes sense now  

[Mourning Star]

15 hours ago, kissdbyfire said:

Illyrio Mopatis is a faceless man. Though if I’m honest, I haven’t thoroughly chucked that crazy notion in the bin of dead theories just yet.

I don't even think this is that crazy. Obviously can't be sure, but it seems entirely plausible.

His compatriot Varys literally changes his face in the text, no mundane disguise has stubble one can feel with your hand.

"Wine," a voice answered. It was not the rat-faced man; this gaoler was stouter, shorter, though he wore the same leather half cape and spiked steel cap. "Drink, Lord Eddard." He thrust a wineskin into Ned's hands.
The voice was strangely familiar, yet it took Ned Stark a moment to place it. "Varys?" he said groggily when it came. He touched the man's face. "I'm not … not dreaming this. You're here." The eunuch's plump cheeks were covered with a dark stubble of beard. Ned felt the coarse hair with his fingers. Varys had transformed himself into a grizzled turnkey, reeking of sweat and sour wine. "How did you … what sort of magician are you?"
"A thirsty one," Varys said. "Drink, my lord."

It's possible that Varys and Illyrio were trainees like are is now, who left or were cast out.

My favorite extension of this is that Illyrio is actually the same man as Salladhor Saan.

[Sandy Clegg]

1 hour ago, Mourning Star said:

don't even think this is that crazy. Obviously can't be sure, but it seems entirely plausible.

So a character in a book featuring assassins who can change their face might in fact be one of those assassins, and they have changed their face to look like the character? This is going to make future analysis of every character extremely precarious. 

We need less plausible theories on here guys, I'm worried these are getting too useful. 

 

[Mourning Star]

5 hours ago, Sandy Clegg said:

So a character in a book featuring assassins who can change their face might in fact be one of those assassins, and they have changed their face to look like the character? This is going to make future analysis of every character extremely precarious. 

We need less plausible theories on here guys, I'm worried these are getting too useful. 

The story certainly does beg the question of who is really a faceless man! An idea that's easy to get carried away with.

Have you ever seen The Prestige?

Spoiler

The trick is living the lie.

But I think Ned also gives us a clue for how to identify facechangers here too, he recognizes Varys's voice.

If only there were another example of a faceless man sounding like another character.

"A man does not choose his companions in the black cells," the handsome one with the red-and-white hair said. Something about the way he talked reminded her of Syrio; it was the same, yet different too. 

But, back to Illyrio, I've always liked the idea that the fat cat in Syrio's lesson is a reference to Illyrio, who was a braavo in his youth. What better profession for a cat than a cheesemonger, and Illyrio and Varys's child spies were called "little mice" in Essos.

"On the day I am speaking of, the first sword was newly dead, and the Sealord sent for me. Many bravos had come to him, and as many had been sent away, none could say why. When I came into his presence, he was seated, and in his lap was a fat yellow cat. He told me that one of his captains had brought the beast to him, from an island beyond the sunrise. 'Have you ever seen her like?' he asked of me.
"And to him I said, 'Each night in the alleys of Braavos I see a thousand like him,' and the Sealord laughed, and that day I was named the first sword."

Illyrio is associated with yellow, right from the start. His beard being described like false gold long before the Golden Company ever appeared on the page, whose words are, "beneath the gold, the bitter steel".

"Stand there," he told her. "Turn around. Yes. Good. You look …"
"Regal," Magister Illyrio said, stepping through an archway. He moved with surprising delicacy for such a massive man. Beneath loose garments of flame-colored silk, rolls of fat jiggled as he walked. Gemstones glittered on every finger, and his man had oiled his forked yellow beard until it shone like real gold. "May the Lord of Light shower you with blessings on this most fortunate day, Princess Daenerys," the magister said as he took her hand. He bowed his head, showing a thin glimpse of crooked yellow teeth through the gold of his beard. "She is a vision, Your Grace, a vision," he told her brother. "Drogo will be enraptured."

And GRRM uses cats in a metaphor for the children of Winterfell, in particular Jon, who's a dragon:

The Red Keep was full of cats: lazy old cats dozing in the sun [Bran], cold-eyed mousers twitching their tails [Robb], quick little kittens with claws like needles [Arya], ladies' cats all combed and trusting [Sansa], ragged shadows prowling the midden heaps [Rickon]. 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 [Jon]. "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."

After all red or black or yellow, a dragon is still a dragon.

"I admire your powers of persuasion," Tyrion told Illyrio. "How did you convince the Golden Company to take up the cause of our sweet queen when they have spent so much of their history fighting against the Targaryens?"
Illyrio brushed away the objection as if it were a fly. "Black or red, a dragon is still a dragon. When Maelys the Monstrous died upon the Stepstones, it was the end of the male line of House Blackfyre." The cheesemonger smiled through his forked beard. "And Daenerys will give the exiles what Bittersteel and the Blackfyres never could. She will take them home."

You know who else was a part of the Band of Nine who fought on the Stepstones? A Saan!

Arya overhears:

"This is no longer a game for two players, if ever it was. Stannis Baratheon and Lysa Arryn have fled beyond my reach, and the whispers say they are gathering swords around them."

Salladhor Saan agrees to work for Stannis in exchange for promises, rather than payment. When the time comes to attack King's Landing, Salla manages to keep his ships out of the Blackwater, and subsequent disaster. Did he know about the chain?

Then, when Davos gets saved and brought to Salla, we see him on the Bountiful Harvest, which he says he has captured because it didn't want to pay him his "lordly due", which Davos equates with piracy. The Bountiful Harvest is Illyrio's ship, in fact it is fitted to transport Illyrio himself. However, and I think this is the kicker, Davos walks in on Salla checking the inventory.

Salladhor Saan was not aboard his Valyrian. They found him at another quay a quarter mile distant, down in the hold of a big-bellied Pentoshi cog named Bountiful Harvest, counting cargo with two eunuchs. One held a lantern, the other a wax tablet and stylus. "Thirty-seven, thirty-eight, thirty-nine," the old rogue was saying when Davos and the captain came down the hatch. Today he wore a wine-colored tunic and high boots of bleached white leather inlaid with silver scrollwork. Pulling the stopper from a jar, he sniffed, sneezed, and said, "A coarse grind, and of the second quality, my nose declares. The bill of lading is saying forty-three jars. Where have the others gotten to, I am wondering? These Pentoshi, do they think I am not counting?" 

Not only does Illyrio employ eunuchs, but why would a pirate be accusing Pentoshi of trying to cheat him when checking the inventory of a ship he supposedly captured?

I actually think Arya's chapter in Braavos provides us with an explanation. She is sent to kill a man who sells binders for ships. Basically insurance. It is implied that he is collecting payment but not paying out when something happens, a form of fraud. I think Illyrio is "capturing his own ship" and collecting the insurance, which is another kind of related fraud. 

If I'm really speculating wildly, I would suggest that Illyrio is the child of Bittersteel and Daemon Blackfyre's daughter, and Serra was the child of Samarro Saan.

Ghosts and liars. Revenants from forgotten wars, lost causes, failed rebellions, a brotherhood of the failed and the fallen, the disgraced and the disinherited.

Edited July 18, 2023 by Mourning Star