Jump to content

A Thread for Small Questions III


Lady Blackfish

Recommended Posts

The gravedigger was hooded and walked around with his head bent, IIRC.

GRRM does mention that the brothers they passed were cowled although this is not explicitly mentioned of the gravedigger. It's quite the opposite for his head position - it says that he lowers his head after he is rebuked for throwing dirt on the septon's feet which means he must have been looking up-ish to begin with.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The gravedigger was hooded and walked around with his head bent, IIRC.

Not only that, but we find out that the cowls are so enveloping that it was not possible to tell that a brother was missing an ear until he removed it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I asked this once before but no-one had an answer so I shall inquire again. Does anybody know what happened to Patchface? In the ACoK prologue, Maester Cressen remembers that patchface was bought in Lys and was, according to the letter he got "A most excelent fool who can sing in 4 tounges". Then the ship bringing Lord Steffon (and patchface) sank in shipbreaker bay and all hands were lost.

Except Patchface.

When they were collecting bodies washing up on the shore they found him and were certain he was "corpse cold" yet he reanimated as the lackwit we know him to be. So what happened? Where did he go for 3 days before washing up? Do his wierd comments about being "under the sea" speak to grander mysteries of the world? Or is he just an oxygen deprived lackwit who says crazy things?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest Other-in-Law

When they were collecting bodies washing up on the shore they found him and were certain he was "corpse cold" yet he reanimated as the lackwit we know him to be. So what happened? Where did he go for 3 days before washing up? Do his wierd comments about being "under the sea" speak to grander mysteries of the world? Or is he just an oxygen deprived lackwit who says crazy things?

Patchface is the strongest evidence that there's something to Ironborn religious beliefs. Whether or not he's been blessed by the Drowned God with prophetic abilities, or if the gods are no more than anthropomorphic explanations for real magical phenomena, one way or the other Patchface came back from the dead with the ability to tell the future.

The irony of course is that the Ironborn insist that what's dead can never die, but comes back harder and stronger than before. Patchface has returned from his drowning, apparently much softer and weaker than before, both mentally and physically. But he did predict the Red Wedding, in his jumbled, useless way.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I was trying to count all the characters who experienced drowning in the series and initally counted 2: Aeron Damphair and Patchface. Obviously the experience profoundly changed both of them. But then I was re-reading SoS and got to Davos' 1st chapter and realized that he drowned too. He was fleeing the fire during the end of the ship battle on the Blackwater Rush and dove to swim under the chain. Even though he was a strong swimmer he realized he wasn't going to make it out. The account is on page 71 of SoS:

He clawed at the water, kicking, pushing himself, turning, his lungs screaming for air, kicking, kicking, lost now in the river murk, kicking, kicking, kicking until he could kick no longer. When he opened his mouth to scream, the water came rushing in, tasting of salt, and Davos Seaworth knew he was drowning. The next he knew the sun was up, and he lay upon a stony strand beneath a spire of naked stone, with the empty bay all around and a broken mast, a burned sail, and a swollen corpse beside him.

I have to ask myself, how in the world did Davos get out of that situation alive without help? His appearence on land sometime after the battle sounds an awful lot like Patchface. Yet Davos isn't damaged. He isn't telling any futures either. Was Davos aided at all? Is there something to the fact that the spire of rock he finds himself on is part of the geographic features called The Spears of the Merling King? Was GRRM hiding something here?

I also note that GRRM tossed in an interesting tidbit, that when the water rushed in it "tasted of salt". Why add that to the narrative if not to establish that Davos was no longer in the freshwater of the River and was more under the influence of the sea? Something else to think about.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Davos does seem a bit harder and stronger after he came back. Before he drowned, he kind of just stood idly by while Melisandre did all sorts of foul things (such as burning the Seven) but after those stalwart gods saved his life (he was praying to the Mother, I think) he stood up to Alester Florent's plans to wage war on Stannis's nobility, defied Melisandre to her face in the prison, and outwitted Melisandre and her plan to burn little Edric -- no mean feat, considering she can see the future too, which might suggest that Davos's henchmen were somehow shielded from the perception that she uses to detect overt threats to herself and her person.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Davos does seem a bit harder and stronger after he came back

[off topic rhetorical question or something]

As they say: What does not destroy me, makes me stronger

I wonder what will come out of Davos if he survives the Manderleys as well.

[end jabber]

Link to comment
Share on other sites

In storm of Swords page 298 Arya meets Lord Lymond Lynchester, an elderly man with all his wits lost to his advanced age who keeps repeating "I held the bridge against Ser Maynard. Red hair and a black temper he had but he could not move me. Six wounds I took before I killed him. Six!"

Does anyone know who Ser Maynard was, where the bridge was at, and during which conflict this occured?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest Other-in-Law

Does anyone know who Ser Maynard was, where the bridge was at, and during which conflict this occured?

No, because he didn't patronise songwriters. Tom O' Sevens guessed that it might have been the bridge behind the Lychester keep, but who can say for sure?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My guess is that it was during the War of the Ninepenny Kings, but that is a pure speculation, I can't prove it. That conflict seems to have been the grand-daddy of wars during it's time. Considering that Ser Lynchester is elderly, the bridge battle might be older than that even.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My question reaches out to anyone who has the english edition of AGOT, since I don't.

I've only read GOT in my native tongue (the other books in english) and I'm very confused about the prologue.

Many posts and topics on this forum have been about the Others but I couldn't for the life of me recall if they actually have been shown or not.

So, I re-read AGOT but in my version the things that attack Will and Ser Waymar Royce are referred to as "wights/wraiths/ghosts/zombies" (I can't translate it properly). Was it actually the Others? If so, I'm really pissed at the translators.

Yay, first post! :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
×
×
  • Create New...