Jon Connington from exile to apotheosis, two ADWD chapters

[Lykos]

Yes, nicely done Uncat. I was thinking, just as Lummel said, that love and unrequited love must be one ofthe main themes apart from power and the circle of time.

I´m making some very

with sources from outside the books and then you come along connect and compile the love and simply / beautifully make the point.

[Uncat]

Lummel, yepp, you are dead right. After Stony Sept (Stony, mind you!) JonCon hit rockbottom and petrified there. Now the rock has thrown himself in the lake that is Westeros, creating a growing stir :lol:

Lycos, I'm a fool for love. That's why I chose Uncat. So much love, so much hate.

[Uncat]

Oh, I had almost forgotten, but Uncat is only her nickname in the forums. Cat became Lady Stoneheart. Stone again. It may refer to her heart being of hard by now. But the motif is the same as with the Stonelord Connington. She became petrified, stuck in time. We once discussed someplace, how Beric and Cat seem to get stuck in the emotions and actions of their last moments while everything else fades away. The same could be said about Connington. He is stuck in the past, stuck in Stony Sept reliving this moments of despair over and over again, when - though still alive - he lost his life. In a way, he is as much undead as Lady Stonehart.

[Elba the Intoner]

Wow great thoughts Uncat!

[Lummel]

...Cat became Lady Stoneheart. Stone again. It may refer to her heart being of hard by now. But the motif is the same as with the Stonelord Connington. She became petrified, stuck in time. We once discussed someplace, how Beric and Cat seem to get stuck in the emotions and actions of their last moments while everything else fades away. The same could be said about Connington. He is stuck in the past, stuck in Stony Sept reliving this moments of despair over and over again, when - though still alive - he lost his life. In a way, he is as much undead as Lady Stonehart.

I like this too, it gives another meaning to the idea of greyscale and I suppose of death too, it is all a locking in place. I suppose this is the spring of the melancholy because he is looking back on a life and trapped into looking back on his life as loss.

I see "the bones remember" now in a different way. It seems slightly sinister, likewise the north remembers - what if not old grievances?

[Uncat]

Huh, nice. Now the North gets a stuck in time aura. But then again, in a way, they are stuck. The first men still rule there. They never made the leap from the animistic and shamanistic religion of the old gods to the more modern and transcendental religion of the seven. There are no citys in the North and they never got past the Starks. All that we are sold as good things. But maybe it isn't. The North rembers or rather, is lost in memories. Love the change of perspective about that thought, Lummel

[Uncat]

Ok, and now that I'm there. Guess who has a basement full of Stonekings and petrified memories. That is another way to see the crypts of Winterfell. A camp of Stoneman, dead and petrified ancestors outnumbering the living by far. A heavy burden of memories rendering those owning them imobile, weighing down on them and draging them back to Winterfell with their cold and hard stone hands. One can say, the Starks as a family root deep. But for the individual boy, girl, man, woman it may be a terribly heavy lot to bear.

[Uncat]

Lummel, in a way, this whole issue plays quite nicely into what is dead may never die. JonCon is dead (in many ways at least) but he rises stronger, and as we noted, much, much harder.

ETA

Hard as stone, to be exact.

ETA

Apart from it being riverwater and not seawater, the whole thing is very Ironman-ish. He goes down under water and returns with a illness which turn him to stone - making him harder in a very litteral way ad well as by the implications (he needs to speed up and had not much time for soft touches)

Did Tyrion rise harder and stronger, too, from his river bath?

[Lummel]

Huh, nice. Now the North gets a stuck in time aura. But then again, in a way, they are stuck. The first men still rule there. They never made the leap from the animistic and shamanistic religion of the old gods to the more modern and transcendental religion of the seven. There are no citys in the North and they never got past the Starks. All that we are sold as good things. But maybe it isn't. The North rembers or rather, is lost in memories. Love the change of perspective about that thought, Lummel

Ok, and now that I'm there. Guess who has a basement full of Stonekings and petrified memories. That is another way to see the crypts of Winterfell. A camp of Stoneman, dead and petrified ancestors outnumbering the living by far. A heavy burden of memories rendering those owning them imobile, weighing down on them and draging them back to Winterfell with their cold and hard stone hands. One can say, the Starks as a family root deep. But for the individual boy, girl, man, woman it may be a terribly heavy lot to bear.

Lummel, in a way, this whole issue plays quite nicely into what is dead may never die. JonCon is dead (in many ways at least) but he rises stronger, and as we noted, much, much harder.

ETA

Hard as stone, to be exact.

ETA

Apart from it being riverwater and not seawater, the whole thing is very Ironman-ish. He goes down under water and returns with a illness which turn him to stone - making him harder in a very litteral way ad well as by the implications (he needs to speed up and had not much time for soft touches)

Did Tyrion rise harder and stronger, too, from his river bath?

I was thinking...immersion in water, baptism, Tyrion does announce his name before being plunged into the water. I don't know about hardening, but maybe a consecration, a declaration of purpose and place in the world?

Ironman - stoneman. Yes, like a grim GRRM joke. Ha! Here is something that really is rising harder and stronger. But for the ironmen, surely like baptism, there is a freedom in that action, for Connington - imprisonment and ultimately death...although I think as per the R'hlloristas and wights death is preferable to the alternatives :laugh:

Yes, I'm not sure entirely with the starks and the sense of long tradition. Being deep rooted is surely positive, a sign of strength, but I suppose there is a double aspect in that it can become an identity and a trap in which you are stuck rather than being an individual, like Tyrion having to be a Lannister, telling Illyrio that he is a lion - yet obviously this is stupid. He's not a lion, and feeling obliged to behave a certain way because you belong to a certain family (or what ever) is a prison as much as anything.

Connington though is surely different, his tie is to Rhaegar rather than the grand traditions of house connington. For the sake of Rhaegar he brought, I suppose, shame on himself through the stealing from the war chest and dying of drink story. I feel there is a link between Connington and Barristan in being trapped in the past and wanting to correct the mistake they made in the past rather than move on from them. Being a Lannister or a Stark probably allows for some human degree of flexibility that the Connington obsession doesn't?

ETA corrected apst to past :)

[Uncat]

Yepp, baptism feels right for Tyrion. And you are very right, Jon and Barry are old man stuck in the past, trying to refight a war, they lost. What is dead may never die but keep on fighting for all eternity.

Yes there are differences, but somehow it also is a connection running throughout the series

Death changes a person :lol: That far, they are all the same. Here is a list from the top of my head:

Dennearis - death by fire, rose harder and stronger

Uncat - death by steel, rising from the water harder and stronger

Tyrion - Lots of quasi-deaths, harder and stronger as of his last Dance chapter

Arya - becoming death and hader and stronger for sure

Barristan - no death, only near death at the Trident. Don't know about harder and stronger

Ok, this will take all day and I have a lot of laundry to do. But just starting the list gave me a feeling of the Return of the living dead. Some are stuck where they died, some at least have a chance to evolve by rebirth. But all in all, there is one thing that separates the action of Game and Clash from Feast and even more Dance. In the first books, it is the living, who are fighting while over the course of Feast and Dance, the dead men and women are taking over. Some literaly dead and raised, some belived to be dead. Some dead and reborn and some just dead and stuck inside.

I think, what is dead may never die is actually a curse. The dead man never die but in a way they always return in persona, in an idea or tradition in a heritage or a son and they keep fighting the same old wars over and over. Only that each iteration gets worse then the previous. Roberts rebellion was a study in strategy compared to the war of the five Kings and hoe many Blackfyre rebellions have been there? This would make what is dead may never dies kind of leitmotif for the whole series.

You die, you rise again and now, what are you going to do? Go into the same fight and die again like Beric? Or will you grap the chance and turn your rising again into a real rebirth? Is it JonCon's way or the way which I sincerely hope Tyrion will take?

ETA

Roots are a good thing. I miss them, because a kid my parents dragged me around a lot and I have no real hometown. I miss that But on the other hand, if the roots go to deep, it isn't good. They keep you from moving and growing. In that way I'm quite happy for not being rooted like most of my cousins. Would not want their lifes for a pot of gold. Talking about pots If you move a plant to soon into a pot to large, that plant will spend all its energy growing roots while it does not evolve aboth the earth. Looking at it that way, it might be a picture for what happened to the Starks. They became all roots.

[Woman of War]

ETA Is Connington a warning figure in the sense of this is what Tyrion could become, a man trapped in their own past, if he can't resolve his desire for vengeance?

@Loras

Some time ago there have been threads comparing Tyrion to Odysseus, I would not know how to find them, sorry. The meaning "trouble" would fit perfectly here.

Can it be that JonCon is Odysseus in arrested development while Tyrion still has the possibility of moving forward towards his metaphorical Penelope. Tyrion completing what Connington has begun, taking over as Odysseus II? Tyrion as Cyclops is hard to see for me since it is Tyrion's role to uncover things and it is Tyrion who is washed to so many shores.

[Lummel]

@Loras

Some time ago there have been threads comparing Tyrion to Odysseus, I would not know how to find them, sorry. The meaning "trouble" would fit perfectly here.

Can it be that JonCon is Odysseus in arrested development while Tyrion still has the possibility of moving forward towards his metaphorical Penelope. Tyrion completing what Connington has begun, taking over as Odysseus II? Tyrion as Cyclops is hard to see for me since it is Tyrion's role to uncover things and it is Tyrion who is washed to so many shores.

There was some comparison here. Some more here maybe.

There was / is a tradition of seeing Odysseus as an obsessive figure, of which the only (! so not so much a tradition maybe :laugh: ) example I can think of is Tennyson's Ulysses, setting out to sea again and never coming to land,

"Death closes all: but something ere the end,

Some work of noble note, may yet be done,"

but quite how useful that is I don't know. I mean it is clear that both Connington and Tyrion are obsessed. I would argue that Connington's obsession has blinded him, but even if you believe that Aegon is real, spending many years of your life seeking revenge, seeking to do something for the sake of someone you loved seventeen years previously to the exclusion of any personal happiness is, erm, not healthy/ideal/normal/standard behaviour (something like that!)

I would certainly hope as a fellow reader that there is some hope for Tyrion to escape his arrested development and move on, but there doesn't seem to be time for that for Connington.

[Uncat]

Reading it this way, it will pretty much depend on Tyrion, if he will end up a stoneman or if the greyscale will never get him. Pricking your thumbs is a way to wake from a dream or to tell dream from reallity. If Tyrion manages it, to wake himself from his dreams o revenge and kindlaying, he has a choice. He can choose not to get stuck in an obsession turning into stone. JonCon on the other hand did make his choice and chose to stay in his dreams.

[Blisscraft]

The Bells - The sound of bells are a symbol of creative power. Because bells are suspended in a hanging position they have a mystic significance as a place between heaven and earth, like a bridge.

As noted above, the sound of bells awaken the senses, the spirit. They are a call to celebrate, to communicate victory or praise. Wedding bells are rung at a marriage to show the union of opposites (male and female). The sound of bells notes the death of someone of significance, such as the bells for Robert's death back in GoT. The sound of bells reveals the harmonic balance and are thought by some to be the voice of god. It reminds me of It's a Wonderful Life: "Everytime a bell rings an angel gets its wings." Finally, the phrase "bell, book, and candle" comes from the Roman Catholic rite of excommunication. Apt for someone like Jon Connington as he has been exiled from Westeros by operation of law.

One of the things about this chapter that goes along with the mummery theme is that of the "changling." This is a common plot twist in many plays and stories. Aegon is a "changling" returned, as is JC. "Not every man is what he seems, a prince especially has good cause to be wary." This was part of the discussion in the Ayra thread recently. As with Arya, the external wearing and removing of garments may fool some of the people some of the time, but not all of the people all of the time. Tyrion figured out JC's ruse with Aegon pretty quickly. This idea reminds me of something Mammy says to Scartlett O'Hara in Gone With the Wind: "You can dress a mule up in feathers and fine harness, but it's still a mule."

The comment above about similarities between Tyrion and JC is interesting. They are both exiles. Both "lost lords" so to speak. Both are unusual: Tyrion is a dwarf; JC's sexuality is "suspect". Both have been lied about. Tyrion carries the lie that he killed Joffrey. JC carries the lie that he died a drunk craven. Both have been wounded by love. Both seek revenge. Both were "Hands of the King". I'm sure there are more. . . .

Franklyn Flowers - got me to thinking about Brown Ben Plumm. There are old sellsword and bold sellswords but no old, bold sellswords. (?)

Finally, the change in direction from going east to Dany changes to west to Westeros is holds some symbolic relevance. East is associated with the sunrise, new beginnings, birth, and creation. West is associated with the sunset and consequently carries with it the suggestion of disease and death. However, this change in direction is now following the natural course of the sun - from sunrise to sunset. It is another allusion to time, a day from beginning to end.

[Lummel]

...As noted above, the sound of bells awaken the senses, the spirit. They are a call to celebrate, to communicate victory or praise. Wedding bells are rung at a marriage to show the union of opposites (male and female). The sound of bells notes the death of someone of significance, such as the bells for Robert's death back in GoT. The sound of bells reveals the harmonic balance and are thought by some to be the voice of god...

Your comment on the bells lead me to think of Bob Baratheon. The bells were the end of an era for both, the beginning of reigns of regret and the idealisation of the past.

The bells should have tolled, mayhaps, a deeper and clearer warning to Connington. His silver Prince was way down south with Lyanna Stark, while apparently oblivious of this Connington was fighting on his behalf.

[the Scorpion Knight]

The Bells - The sound of bells are a symbol of creative power. Because bells are suspended in a hanging position they have a mystic significance as a place between heaven and earth, like a bridge.

As noted above, the sound of bells awaken the senses, the spirit. They are a call to celebrate, to communicate victory or praise. Wedding bells are rung at a marriage to show the union of opposites (male and female). The sound of bells notes the death of someone of significance, such as the bells for Robert's death back in GoT. The sound of bells reveals the harmonic balance and are thought by some to be the voice of god. It reminds me of It's a Wonderful Life: "Everytime a bell rings an angel gets its wings." Finally, the phrase "bell, book, and candle" comes from the Roman Catholic rite of excommunication. Apt for someone like Jon Connington as he has been exiled from Westeros by operation of law.

One of the things about this chapter that goes along with the mummery theme is that of the "changling." This is a common plot twist in many plays and stories. Aegon is a "changling" returned, as is JC. "Not every man is what he seems, a prince especially has good cause to be wary." This was part of the discussion in the Ayra thread recently. As with Arya, the external wearing and removing of garments may fool some of the people some of the time, but not all of the people all of the time. Tyrion figured out JC's ruse with Aegon pretty quickly. This idea reminds me of something Mammy says to Scartlett O'Hara in Gone With the Wind: "You can dress a mule up in feathers and fine harness, but it's still a mule."

The comment above about similarities between Tyrion and JC is interesting. They are both exiles. Both "lost lords" so to speak. Both are unusual: Tyrion is a dwarf; JC's sexuality is "suspect". Both have been lied about. Tyrion carries the lie that he killed Joffrey. JC carries the lie that he died a drunk craven. Both have been wounded by love. Both seek revenge. Both were "Hands of the King". I'm sure there are more. . . .

Franklyn Flowers - got me to thinking about Brown Ben Plumm. There are old sellsword and bold sellswords but no old, bold sellswords. (?)

Finally, the change in direction from going east to Dany changes to west to Westeros is holds some symbolic relevance. East is associated with the sunrise, new beginnings, birth, and creation. West is associated with the sunset and consequently carries with it the suggestion of disease and death. However, this change in direction is now following the natural course of the sun - from sunrise to sunset. It is another allusion to time, a day from beginning to end.

Franklyn has the kind of face that Hardly tells the age

in judaism and ancient gaul and britanny (and other cultures I don't know of) dawn marked the beginning of the day

[Blisscraft]

Scorpoion Knight - Sorry if I wasn't clear about the direction. JC & Co. were heading to the east. Now they have changed that direction and are headed to the west. So they are going from east to west; following the course of the sun. As for FF, JC knew him back in the day at the GC which makes him (ahem) no longer young.

[Lummel]

The Griffin Reborn – Jon Connington II

ADWD chapter 62, pp 801-813 (hardback 1^st edition)

Overview

The previous chapter was coloured with frustration at delay, this chapter opens with satisfaction and pleasure at how smoothly the capture of Griffin's Roast went.

Having captured the castle Conington makes his excuses and climbs up a tower to pay homage on top of the stony erection to his memories of his silver Prince, Rhaegar (compare this with the tower top scene in The Mystery Knight).

Connington plans to seize Storm's End by guile and to open negotiations with Prince Doran of Dorne and the friends in the Reach mentioned in the previous chapter.

Both chapters follows parallel paths moving from outside to inside a guarded space followed by a council of war and a resolution to take action. In both chapters Connington starts in a leadership role but Aegon asserts himself at the end.

Observations

• It's hard to avoid Double Entendres at times.
  
• Emphasis on the professionalism and skill of the Golden Company
  
• Fifty generations of Conningtons have sat and ruled in the Griffin seat – this is a place rich, potentially in family memories for Connington, except of course it isn't. His memories here are all of Rhaegar.
  
• “I did not want the name of butcher” p805 - Tywin plays by different rules
  
• “no one balked. No one died” - slightly different to the scene in Bran VI ACOK when Theon captures the castle
  
• The Golden Company seem to have landed in and around Ship breaker bay.
  
• Greyscale heading up Connington's fingers – send not to know for whom the bell tolls...
  
• “At least I convinced him to leave the other six slots open, else Duck might have six ducklings trailing behind him, each more blindingly adequate than the last” p812 Is Connington planning on all the existing kingsguard dying or on giving them notice? A departure from even what King Bob did...
  

Analysis

False memories and treasured memories

In Arya V ASOS Arya is told that during the battle of the Bells that Bob Baratheon would have killed Connington but the battle never brought them together. Strangely Connington recalls that Bob almost slew him on the Steps of the old Sept. It is hard to imagine that such an eye catching scene wouldn't have made it in to legend. Is this a false memory on Connington's part and indicative of an unreliable narrator?

It's curious despite being critical of his father's obsession with lands that his following thoughts are land oriented. Rhaegar appreciates the beauty of his future lands, Connington finds the view intoxicating, once he's shouldered open this stiff door on the past. Land ownership is linked to ideas of lordship and the future. It's hard to avoid seeing sexual connotations in the appraising eye and boasting. But there is also a younger man in awe of a slightly older one and it's clear that Connington was not as close to Rhaegar as he wanted. Arthur Dayne had that honour. Connington is appointed Hand while Rhaegar is away down south with Lyanna, a point he doesn't touch on. This is a man with a serious case of unrequited love. If Elia was not worthy of Rhaegar (and what woman would have been in Connington's eyes?) then what would his view of Lyanna had been? If Connington really knew nothing about Lyanna then he must have been outside of Rhaegar's intimate circle. This isn't something that he reflects on in the chapter.

The intensity of the memory over shadows the present. Aegon's “I like your castle” seems mean and pedestrian compared with “'Your father's lands are beautiful', he said. His silvery hair was blowing in the wind, and his eyes were a deep purple, darker than this boy's” p 812

[Uncat]

On the King's Guard. I noted that with Renly, too. He actually went even further. He called a new guard into existence with new colors. If he had won, that would have meant complety closing the book on the old KG. But then again, Bob was only once removed from Targeryan tradition and based his claim on his Targ droplet of blood. Renly bases his claim on Bob having been King. He is twiced removed from Targ rule and thus has a better chance of removing the last reminders of the Targs. Connington on the other hand has a real Targ (or so he says) and is free to brush away whatever the Ursuper left. And both would feel free to get rid of everything Lannister - which by now almost all knights of the KG, including the kingslaying Lord Commander.

To get back to JonCon. As we noted, he grew harder. No KG leftovers for him, clean slate, fresh page.

ETA

Actually no one seems really seems to touch the Rheagar and Lyanna subject. People always make it look as if it all was about the mad king and Rheagar was just fighting this war to save the Throne.

[the Scorpion Knight]

On the King's Guard. I noted that with Renly, too. He actually went even further. He called a new guard into existence with new colors. If he had won, that would have meant complety closing the book on the old KG. But then again, Bob was only once removed from Targeryan tradition and based his claim on his Targ droplet of blood. Renly bases his claim on Bob having been King. He is twiced removed from Targ rule and thus has a better chance of removing the last reminders of the Targs. Connington on the other hand has a real Targ (or so he says) and is free to brush away whatever the Ursuper left. And both would feel free to get rid of everything Lannister - which by now almost all knights of the KG, including the kingslaying Lord Commander.

To get back to JonCon. As we noted, he grew harder. No KG leftovers for him, clean slate, fresh page.

actually I think serval leftovers will be incuded in Aegon VI kinguard (my guess: jaime, baristan and balon swann)

i also find the diffrences betweenAegon kingsguard and renlys intresting:

renly post in the rainbow guard were either due to nepotism, favor or even as a prize in a meele and they seem to be more of a decoration

Aegon first one is a devoted bodyguard and a trusted friend and he follows him EVERYWHERE