Moments of Foreshadowing 2

[Leto]

There's an idea I've tossed around/seen tossed around about the ultimate battle mirroring Ragnorak in Norse mythology, when slain heroes rise from Valhalla to fight. There's a lot of resurrection imagery in the story — people rising from crypts, being resurrected as wights, resurrected by fire magic, etc. — such that I think the part about Starks rising from crypts might not be that crazy.

The dead kings rising to fight in the final battle is a bit lord of the ringsy for martin though?

[Sand Snake No. 9]

Littlefinger's eyes are described as grey-green.

When Arya comes to Braavos, she senses that Braavos is a grey city in a green sea.

Also, Braavos is all stone.

Does it tell about Littlefinger ? And..... I find some similarity between Krishna in Mahabharata and LF in Ice and Fire.

I know it sounds crackpot, but .... can LF be Him of Many Faces ?

I don't think so, but I believe that LF was the stone giant with the face of blood and smoke in Bran's vision.

[Liar]

I'm wondering about this lines in Clash when Arry and the NW recruits are attacked by Ser Amory Lorch. The village and the barn were aflame, this is how Arry sees Gendry:

"Through the slits of his helm, the Bull's eyes

shone with reflected fire"

"Gendry came back, the fire shining so bright on his polished helm

that the horns seemed to glow orange"

His helm and eyes are mentioned. No other characters (Save Arya, but that is another topic) are given this kind of description related to fire in this chapter.

Do you think there is foreshadowing there? Maybe like if Gendry is discovered by Stannis and Mel, they could burn him. Gods I hope not. What do you think?

[Sand Snake No. 9]

I'm wondering about this lines in Clash when Arry and the NW recruits are attacked by Ser Amory Lorch. The village and the barn were aflame, this is how Arry sees Gendry:

"Through the slits of his helm, the Bull's eyes

shone with reflected fire"

"Gendry came back, the fire shining so bright on his polished helm

that the horns seemed to glow orange"

His helm and eyes are mentioned. No other characters (Save Arya, but that is another topic) are given this kind of description related to fire in this chapter.

Do you think there is foreshadowing there? Maybe like if Gendry is discovered by Stannis and Mel, they could burn him. Gods I hope not. What do you think?

I think that's about his eventual conversion to R'hllorism. It would be interesting to see Stannis' reaction to a spitting-image of his brother Renly, assuming Stannis lives long enough to return south.

[Queen Cersei I]

"Did honor die with our fathers?"

"My father is not dead yet," said Tyrion

Just wait until the next book, Tyrion. Just wait.

Whoever the boys mother had been, she had not left a bit of herself in the boy.

Tyrion reflecting on how Jon Snow looks like his "father," Ned Stark. Because her mother didn't leave a bit of herself in him. Teeheee.

She sat atop the iron throne..... Suddenly she realized she was naked. She covered herself to hide her shame...all around her the smallfolk laughed....

From Cersei's opening chapter in AFFC. Sounds like a foreshadowing to her walk of shame, with the smallfolk watching and her trying to cover herself, etc.

[Sand Snake No. 9]

Tyrion reflecting on how Jon Snow looks like his "father," Ned Stark. Because her mother didn't leave a bit of herself in him. Teeheee.

Oh, good catch. GRRM is doing one of his opposite things there, I think.

[Ice Turtle]

Robb looked relieved. “Good.” He smiled. “The next time I see you, you’ll be all in black.”

Jon forced himself to smile back. “It was always my color. How long do you think it will be?”

“Soon enough,” Robb promised. He pulled Jon to him and embraced him fiercely. “Farewell, Snow.”

As Robb is dead I hope they won't see each other so soon. I like the part where Jon says that black had been always his color, which it was unbeknown to him, if he is indeed legal Targ.

[Vinterhed]

CoC page 267 Catelyn.

"The steel was shining so that she could see her own reflection in the harness. It looked back at her as if from the bottom of a deep pond. A drowned womens face, thought catelyn. Can you drown in sorrow?"

This may not be the exact worlds since I have trranslated it back to English from the Swedish translation.

Seems like most readers have missed this forshadowing of the RW.

[tze]

"The dead do not rise," insisted Haldon Halfmaester, "and no man lives a thousand years."

Well, the dead are definitely rising. So where is the man who's lived a thousand years? Coldhands?

[Sand Snake No. 9]

"Did honor die with our fathers?"

"My father is not dead yet," said Tyrion

In a similar vein:

“After a time he heard the noise again, the rasp of steel on stone as Bronn sharpened his sword. ‘thirteen or thirty or three, I would have killed the man who did that to me.’ Tyrion swung around to face him. ‘You may get that chance one day. Remember what I told you. A Lannister always pays his debts.’”

Tyrion collected from his father; sooner or later he'll have to pay his own.

[Fire Eater]

The fish course was next but as the pike was being boned

This scene comes right after Jon receives a letter from Cotter Pyke starting the voyage to Hardhome. Pike sounds exactly like Pyke, so Cotter could be going on his last voyage.

"Why did he attack me" Tyrion asked . . .

"Maybe he thought you were a grumkin."

"I suppose I do rather look like a grumkin. What does he do to snarks?"

"Does Lord Stannis propose to defend us from snarks and dragons too?"

Stannis will be leading the North against Dany's dragons and snarky Tyrion later on.

[Liar]

These are from Clash, Arya V:

The fire beat at her back with hot red wings as she fled the burning barn

I take this meaning that Arya will somehow: Either avoid or scaping literal hot wings (dragons) or metaphorical ones like Daenerys or "Aegon". Or perhaps something R'hllorian.

It felt blessedly cool outside, but men were dying all around her

Arya rolled headfirst into the tunnel and dropped five feet. She got dirt in her mouth but she didn't care, the taste was fine, the taste was mud and water and worms and life. Under the earth

the air was cool and dark

And this like perhaps she will find the old gods again and their power; or the Wall.

[Newstar]

I've noticed when characters say that they'll never do something, they often wind up doing just that very thing. (Or if character X says that character Y would never do something, character Y has either already done it or will do it.) Exhibit A: Catelyn vowing to never ask Brienne to do anything that would bring her dishonour. Yeah, about that...

Arya vs. Sansa Death-Off:

In this corner: Arya

1. "You remind me of [Lyanna] sometimes. You even look like her. (...) She was beautiful, and willful, and dead before her time." (Ned, to Arya)

2. "The longer you hide, the sterner the penance. You'll be sewing all through winter. When the spring thaw comes, they will find your body with a needle still locked tight between your frozen fingers." (Jon to Arya)

3. "I hope your princess dies" (to Elmar Frey, his "princess" being Arya)

4. Arya thinking of herself as the "lone wolf" and remembering her father's words about the lone wolf dying but the pack surviving, and thinking that "he had it all backwards"

5. Syrio referring to Arya as a "dead girl" more than once

In this corner: Sansa

1. Lady's death (self-explanatory, possibly foreshadowing Sansa being sacrificed in place of Arya for some reason)

2. Recurring dreams of Ser Ilyn (the personification of death for Sansa), even after she escapes King's Landing

3. Dream in ACOK of being stabbed to death (PTSD/first period, maybe something else?)

4. Cersei seeing Sansa in the crowd along with Lady during her walk of shame (as most of the others she imagined were dead: Tywin, Ned, Melara, etc.)

5. "Try not to stab your sister."

6. "It was as if she had become a ghost, dead before her time."

Winner (or loser, I guess): If one of them has to go it will be Sansa, probably, if only because GRRM likes Arya more. Apparently, Sansa was originally conceived as nothing but a foil for Arya, the girly-girl yin to Arya's tomboy yang, which might explain a lot about Sansa's characterization in AGOT but is not super reassuring as to her ultimate importance to the story, just as Robb's lack of his own POV was a subtle hint towards him ultimately being a disposable character. Assuming that there is any kind of civilization after the apocalyptic goings-on, Sansa seems like the type of "earthly" character who would be stuck with picking up the pieces trying to put the world back together (as opposed to all the characters running around with magical/otherworldly associations), but I don't know that she's going to live that long.

[Nymeria_Snow]

One I noticed today on re-reading GoT (and it's kind of obscure) is Tyrion cursing Cat as a 'seven times damned she-wolf' . I appreciate 'seven hells' is a common curse in these books but I'd like to think it has some connection to her later conversion to Lady Stoneheart, who has inherited Beric's power of defying death- which he of course did seven times. It's probably too much of a stretch but I like it!

[NotSoSilentSister]

Winner (or loser, I guess): If one of them has to go it will be Sansa, probably, if only because GRRM likes Arya more. Apparently, Sansa was originally conceived as nothing but a foil for Arya, the girly-girl yin to Arya's tomboy yang,

Did Martin say that in an interview or where did you get the idea? Was not my impression at all.

I'd go with Arya in the death-match, precisely _because_ Martin himself and most readers like her more. The plucky-tomboy-heroine would be the most unlikely character to die in more generic fare, so that's who you kill off if you want to be unpredictable. Of course, by now, he might no longer operate on that paradigm, subvert convention once too often and it becomes predictable again, etc....

Still, I think the forshadowing in Arya's case is even more ominous, the hints about Sansa can more easily be interpreted to mean something else:

1) It's so obvious, it's too obvious.Sansa being the first to lose her direwolf already forshadowed her being the first to lose touch with her Stark identity, when she chose King's Landing over Winterfell by telling Cersei about Ned's plan. She has been surviving without Lady for quite a while now.... so far we had one Stark kid surviving the death of her direwolf, we might have one direwolf surviving the death of a Stark kid for the sake of symmetry.

2) If these dreams signify anything more than PTSD, I'd bet they signify something else. Sansa is clearly misplacing her fears, right now, Payne is the least danger to her.

3) PTSD explains it nicely - she just escaped the raging mob and gets her first period, that can feel quite a lot like getting stabbed.

4) Another common thread of these people is that Cersei hideously wronged them. For all Cersei knows Sansa might well be dead too at his point - but I guess the guilt the sight of Sansa triggers is the more salient point.

5) That may forshadow Arya trying to kill Sansa, not necessarily her succeeding.

6) Certain people like to read that as forshadowing a closer relationship with Jon Snow (via his direwolf) - I' think that's reaching - (also, they are brother and sister, R+L be damned! Westermarck Effect!) - but I don't necessarily read it as death either, more as something signaling the necessity of symbolic rebirth (by reclaiming her Stark idenity). In general I think the whole loss of direwolf-death for Stark thing is less literal with Sansa. She did not die when she lost hers, but the Stark part in her died for a while. It's definitely in need of resurrection.

But my main argument for Arya's death as the final Troll-Martin-moment is the one you already hinted at: Sansa has a shitload of work waiting for her come spring - if there are any pieces left (and I think there will be, Martin promised a bittersweet ending, not unremitting misery), who else would put them together? Arya in contrast will feel rather lost. War has a way of ruining certain people for peace and Arya's just the type. Catelyn saw her face in the statue of the Warrior...

[John W]

I'd go with Arya "winning" since it seems that women who fend for themselves seem to fare relatively well like Asha Greyjoy and Brienne of Tarth. Even Dany has done well for herself, relatively speaking.

[Alta1r]

"Jon was walking past the armory, feeling the brief chill of a light snowfall melting on his face. Although his mind was focused on his task, he couldn't shake the feeling that he was the offspring of Lyanna Stark and Rheagar Targaryen."

ASoS Chapter 28

LOL. This was awesome.

[NotSoSilentSister]

I'd go with Arya "winning" since it seems that women who fend for themselves seem to fare relatively well like Asha Greyjoy and Brienne of Tarth. Even Dany has done well for herself, relatively speaking.

There are various way to fend for yourself... The Queen of Thrones won't take up a sword any time soon...

Also, I'd hate to see your idea of "not faring well" if you think that Brienne qualifies for "faring well"....

A more obvious counter-point, maybe: Pretty Meris.

Survival in Westeros is a crapshot - it's not related to virtue, pluck, strength, or any other intrinsic quality of a character. All men must die.

[Newstar]

Also, the jury's still out on Asha, Brienne, and Dany. They've lasted this long, but I'm not convinced any of them will survive the series. Asha might get a pass as the lone surviving Greyjoy.

Edited to respond to Queen Cersei I

He'll surely end up alone and lonely at the end of the novel (but materially successful), however, I'd guess that that was just another device to inspire yet more pity for poor little Tyrion.

But he's sad and alone, so, you know, it's bittersweet. Ha!

Tyrion pretty much has to die, doesn't he? In between the possibility he'll contract greyscale, the kinslaying curse, the kingslaying charges, his many, many enemies, the Lannister stock dropping by the hour, the likely eradication of House Lannister (or at least of Tywin's line, karmic payback for what he did to the Reynes and the Tarbecks), and the many parallels between him and his (doomed) siblings, there's not enough plot armour in the world that can keep him alive, unless GRRM goes through some incredible plot contortions.

Still, I could see Tyrion alive and on the Wall (assuming there is a Wall of sorts left at the end of everything). Punishment for his past, present and yet to be committed crimes, mirrors his trip up there in AGOT, etc. He would still be sad and lonely (although he could BFF it up with Jorah, who I suspect is going to wind up at the Wall), but it would be a little less ridiculous.

[Queen Cersei I]

In a similar vein:

Tyrion collected from his father; sooner or later he'll have to pay his own.

Personally, I'd like to see Tysha pay her own debt to Tyrion. In full. With a crossbow.

Unfortunately, I don't think we'll ever see the unnamed sex slave of Illario's whom Tyrion threatened to rape and possibly murder (and presumably returned to do the former; GRRM apparently doesn't think it important enough to tell us); or anyone to avenge Shae. I honestly don't think that GRRM considers either of these deeds evil, or something that Tyrion has to be redeemed for.

He'll surely end up alone and lonely at the end of the novel (but materially successful), however, I'd guess that that was just another device to inspire yet more pity for poor little Tyrion.