Tag: Cersei Lannister

Aurane, the Lord of the Waters, Part 1 – The Set Up

(Top illustration – Aurane “the Bastard of Driftmark” Water by Amino)

In Strange Sails I tackle the mystery and/or prediction on how the ragtag of exiles capture Storm’s End. A critical inspection on the castle, the cliff, the token host besieging and the two hundred inside leads to the conclusion that

  • the capture of Storm’s End requires a naval ally.
  • and that the Golden Company gaining Tarth for its territory after the Volantenese scattered them along the southern coastlines indicates the acquisition of naval allies.

The cogs and crew of Greenstone are the sole acknowledged ships to have been commandeered, but it can hardly be called a naval fleet. The possibilities become far more interesting once we recognize that Salladhor Saan and Aurane Waters – who abandoned their former known allies in Westeros – each have naval war and combat experience as well as ships. Various reports and in-world speculations position both these men at the Stepstones at the right time to meet with those of the Golden Company the Volantenese dropped ashore. And there is no reason to believe that if Salla sells his sails to the Golden Company that this excludes Aurane from being an ally. After all, both sailed together for Stannis in aCoK. So, they can both end up sailing for Aegon in tWoW and off-page in aDwD. This essay is meant to dig deeper into the case for Aurane Waters specifically having allied himself (unwttingly) with Aegon, Jon Connington and the Golden Company.

Obviously Aurane Waters and the stolen fleet of dromonds would have been useful to move the stranded Golden Company and their elephants from the Stepstones to Cape Wrath and, later, into Shipbreaker’s Bay or the Straight of Tarth. Once Aurane’s alleged whereabouts are pointed out around the time of Jon Connington’s landing – the Stepstones – it seems a sensible proposal for Aurane to have helped the partially stranded Golden Company and elephants to wherever they wish to go.

The case I will be arguing, however, is not that of an opportunistic pirate jumping on the chance, when it presents itself. Instead, like BryndenBFish, I argue that Aurane Waters was an agent of Varys in aFfC. His essay The Agents of Chaos, Part 3: The Pirate King summarizes Aurane’s role on Cersei’s small council well and sets up a pragmatical case for it. I will add to his proposal with further literary analysis as well as go even further into the past, to aCoK, and argue that Varys recruited Aurane shortly after his capture at the Blackwater, before he bent the knee to Joffrey. I will also propose a scenario how Taena Merryweather managed to manipulate Cersei into picking Aurane for her small council.

Varys’ Need

A bald plump man in white silks with a purple border, walking past what appears one of the paws, claws or feet of a dragon skeleton

While I have pointed out Aegon’s need for a naval fleet, Varys also needed agents around Cersei.

Tyrion’s travels with team-exile show beyond any doubt that Varys and Illyrio have been working since the victory of Robert’s Rebellion (if not before) on getting Aegon on the throne. Varys built and managed a spy network for two decades. Illyrio bribed and paid politicians and rulers of Free Cities. They drafted contracts with the Golden Company over a decade ago and recruited and funded various people to maintain a floating private tutoring school for Aegon. And they used agents to do their bidding, such as Jorah Mormont in aGoT.

After Varys manipulated Robert into promising a reward to anyone who would assassinate the pregnant Danaerys, his co-conspiritor Illyrio warned Jorah of Robert’s intention so that he could inform Drogo of this. It was an elaborate scheme to motivate Drogo into crossing the Narrow Sea and Dany’s death was the potential collateral damage they were willing to risk. They may even have wanted the assassination to succeed to rid themselves of a rival to Aegon, namely Dany’s unborn child. After all, they would have wanted Drogo ultimately to fight and die for their candidate Aegon, not Drogo’s child. And this double-sided manipulation could have been succesful if not for Drogo’s wound and him smearing bacteria filled mud on his chest near his heart.

Ideally, Varys would have remained a manipulating force on the small council until Aegon arrives at the gates of King’s Landing. But Tywin’s murder and Jaime knowing of Varys’ involvement to free Tyrion forced him to go into hiding, just as Aegon and the Golden Company are about to move to Volantis to sail for Westeros. Varys and Illyrio did not work this dilligently, albeit with great flexibility, for close to twenty years to then leave it solely to chance in the last stretch. They would get agents close to the one wielding power. And it is even reasonable to suspect that Varys would have prepared for such a contingency plan well in advance. Especially since Robert’s death, there was an increasing risk that any of the Lannister hands or regents might dismiss him or mean him lethal harm. Remember that Varys increasingly felt it was impossible to keep juggling hundred balls in the air when Ned Stark still lived and was Hand, that this was “no longer a game for two players, if ever it was.”

Varys as Rugen to Illyrio: “Even the finest of jugglers cannot keep a hundred  balls  in  the air forever.” (aGoT, Arya III)

I find it a big ask to believe that Varys would leave either regent or Hand to their own devices in the final stretch before Aegon’s homecoming. Nor am I the only person suspecting at least one character being an agent operating for Varys in aFfC.

Taena Merryweather

One of the more apparent agents during Cersei’s reign in aFfC in the minds of many readers is Taena Merryweather, though they may disagree who she is working for or even regard her a double agent. In 2014 BryndenBFish built a strong case for Taena in his Agents of Chaos (Part 1): The Myrish Femme Fatale. One argument of his confirms she is in contact with Varys: her revealing to Cersei that Olenna Tyrell has a chest of Gardener coins to con unsuspecting merchants. When Jaimeinquires with Cersei what she knows about Taena and what sort of things Taena tells her, she replies

“Did you know that the Queen of Thorns keeps a chest of coins in her wheelhouse? Old gold from before the Conquest. Should any tradesman be so unwise as to name a price in golden coins, she pays him with hands from Highgarden, each half the weight of one of our dragons. What merchant would dare complain of being cheated by Mace Tyrell’s lady mother?” (aFfC, Jaime II)

Taena’s reveal strengthens Cersei’s paranoia about the Tyrells’ involvement in Tyrion’s escape and Tywin’s murder, because Qyburn discovered exactly such a coin in Rugen’s cell.

“I know all this.” Jaime had examined Rugen’s cell, and Ser Addam’s gold cloaks had examined it again.
“Aye, Your Grace,” said Qyburn, “but did you know that under that stinking chamber pot was a loose stone, which opened on a small hollow? The sort of place where a man might hide valuables that he did not wish to be discovered?”
“Valuables?” This was new. “Coin, you mean?” She had suspected all along that Tyrion had somehow bought this gaoler.
“Beyond a doubt. To be sure, the hole was empty when I found it. No doubt Rugen took his ill-gotten treasure with him when he fled. But as I crouched over the hole with my torch, I saw something glitter, so I scratched in the dirt until I dug it out.” Qyburn opened his palm. “A gold coin.”
Gold, yes, but the moment Cersei took it she could tell that it was wrong. Too small, she thought, too thin. The coin was old and worn. On one side was a king’s face in profile, on the other side the imprint of a hand. “This is no dragon,” she said.
“No,” Qyburn agreed. “It dates from before the Conquest, Your Grace. The king is Garth the Twelfth, and the hand is the sigil of House Gardener.” (AFFC, Cersei II)

Though Jaime and gold cloaks had examined Rugen’s cell, it is implied that Qyburn was the sole person to discover the loose stone, because Cersei responds to Qyburn’s description of Rugen’s cell as “I know all this”. This then would absolutely rule out the gold cloaks from taking the content of the hollow for themselves or talking about it. As BryndenBFish pointed out, only Varys (who is Rugen), Qyburn and Cersei know about the coin, when Taena conveniently links Olenna to the coin. We can rule out Qyburn having tipped off Taena, since Cersei commanded him to not mention it to anyone else.

“You will not speak of this with anyone,” she commanded.
“Your Grace may trust in my discretion. Any man who rides with a sellsword company learns to hold his tongue, else he does not keep it long.” (AFFC, Cersei II)

We can rely on Qyburn to have kept this secret, since he did not betray Roose’s plans to Jaime either when he tended to Jaime at Harrenhal. So, if Taena mentioned Olenna’s cheap deception with the Gardener gold because she knew about the coin Qyburn found and gave to Cersei, then only Varys could have been her source on the latter.

It is also noteworthy that symbolically the Merryweathers fit the “exile team” concept. Orton Merryweather’s grandfather Owen Merryweather was once the Mad King’s Hand and, like Jon Connington, stripped of his lands and sent into exile by Aerys II for his failure to contain Robert’s Rebellion. Orton joined his grandfather to Essos, and eventually wed Taena of Myr. Orton managed to persuade Robert Baratheon to return the seat Longtable back to House Merryweather.

His sister laughed. “Not you. Have no fear on that count. Perhaps Taena’s husband. His grandfather was Hand under Aerys.”
The horn-of-plenty Hand. Jaime remembered Owen Merryweather well enough; an amiable man, but ineffectual. “As I recall, he did so well that Aerys exiled him and seized his lands.”
“Robert gave them back. Some, at least. Taena would be pleased if Orton could recover the rest.” (aFfC, Jaime II)

Taena’s son was born at Longtable and six in 300 AC. Taena is also said to be a decade younger than Cersei. This means Taena was born roughly in 276 AC and birthed her first and only child at 17 in 294 AC. The youngest marriage age that George allows for is 12. But Taena is not a noble’s daughter who is wed at first flowering for her title or land and they wed before Orton petitioned with Robert successfully for his own return to rule Longtable. It seems likeliest that Orton got his ancestral land back after the Greyjoy rebellion somewhere between 291-293 AC.

Readers also argue that when Laswell Peake of the Golden Company refers to friends in the Reach this implies House Merryweather, which has been staunchly loyal to House Targaryen:

  • They marched alongside of House Peake to join Maegor the Cruel’s army against Aegon the Uncrowned,
  • During the onset of the Dance, Lord Merryweather remained loyal to Rhaenyra, was imprisoned and when brought before the King’s Justice still refused to bend the knee to Aegon II. He was beheaded for this. His wife would only yielded the castle to Lord Ormund Hightower after a siege, and still sent levies to join the Blacks at Tumbleton.

By itself, the friends in the Reach theoretically could by anybody, but notice what Taena has to say about the friends she has across the water!

It was Lady Merryweather who truly pleased her. “Your Grace,” that one said, in her sultry Myrish tones, “I have sent word to my friends across the narrow sea, asking them to seize the Imp at once should he show his ugly face in the Free Cities.”
“Do you have many friends across the water?”
“In Myr, many. In Lys as well, and Tyrosh. Men of power.” (aFfC, Cersei II)

When Taena claims to have many friends in Myr, the news of the Golden Company breaking its contract with Myr has not yet reached King’s Landing. They were still believed to be in Myr. 10000 friends would be many, right? Illyrio and Aegon and those they sponsored are men of power. If so, then Taena’s advice for her many friends to seize the Imp is a witty allusion to Illyrio already having Tyrion in his possession to gift him to Jon Connington. And take note of the fact, that apart from this one time reference to her many friends across the water, Taena fails to ever inform Cersei of any news from Essos about Tyrion, Myr, the Golden Company, … Taena Merryweather’s reports (real and fake) are restriced to court gossip on Margaery and her cousins.

Eventually, Taena’s flight from King’s Landing with her husband after Cersei’s arrest as well as her excuses to stay away raises suspicion for most readers as her being someone’s agent.

“Merryweather has resigned his seat on the council and fled back to Longtable with his wife, who was the first to bring us news of the . . . accusations . . . against Your Grace.” (aFfC, Cersei X)

At the very least, they honor the idiom meaning of their name by proving they are fair-weather friends, even though Sansa is not to call Taena “merry“.

Under the Radar

Aurane Waters is rarely suspected of being an agent though. Most readers assume he either grifted a fleet of warships for himself from Cersei, or fled with the fleet after Cersei’s arrest in fear for his life for having been part of her council. This impression relies on a list of assumptions and beliefs that are questionable.

For example, it may seem over the top that Varys would risk having two agents work alongside one another. But consider how in aCoK and aSoS, Littlefinger has several agents operating inside the Red Keep all at once  – Ser Dontos, the Kettleblack brothers and Lothor Brune. Littlefinger and Varys are not that different from one another in how they operate, except that Varys uses secrets and the desire for home and family as stick and carrot where Littlefinger uses coin and briberies. So, if say Taena does work for Varys in aFfC, this is not a reason to exclude someone else at the Red Keep from being an agent alongside her. It would just mean the various agents have other goals to achieve and thus operate in different settings. Nor are they necessarily aware of one another.

Another mistake is the tendency to see Varys and Illyrio have two strictly dvided roles: Varys is the spy, recruiter and manipulator, while Illyrio is the banker merchant who gets to provide financial support, logistics and gifts material aid. So, we are predisposed to expect Illyrio to acquire, build or buy a fleet of warships, not Varys. Nevertheless, Illyrio is not so rich to be able to fund such a thing: even Cersei has to halt payments of the crown’s loan to the Faith and the Iron Bank in order to build ten dromonds.

Even if Illyrio had the funds to build a war fleet, he could not build one in Pentos without provoking Braavos. The Secret City does not allow entire Pentos more than twenty warships.

A further provision of the peace accords between Braavos and Pentos limits the Pentoshi to no more than twenty warships and prohibits them from hiring sellswords, entering into contracts with free companies, or maintaining any army beyond the city watch. (tWoIaF – The Free Cities: Pentos)

Pentos is also prohibited from hiring sellswords or draft contracts with free companies. That broad prohibition against militaristic expansion on Pentos by Braavos can explain many if not most of Illyrio’s tactics in acquiring military support. As a magister of Pentos, Illyrio has to do it with the utmost secrecy. Braavos would descend upon Pentos with their war fleet if Illyrio had a personal deal with Khal Drogo to hand him 50 000 Dothraki. Instead he has Viserys make a deal with Drogo, with Dany as prized bride for it. Illyrio could not have signed a contract with the Golden Company for gold. He can only do that for secret blood to a young man to whom he is not related (officially), and all in the utmost secrecy.

All of this explains why Illyrio paid the Volantenese sails to do no more than transport the Golden Company to Westeros. Varys would have been expected to secure a naval solution for Aegon from his side of the Narrow Sea. Admittedly, a war fleet may not have been high on the priority list, initially. At the start of the series, the master of ships Stannis Baratheon has retreated to Dragonstone, while a large contingent of Robert’s fleet is in King’s Landing. This division between the two Baratheon brothers would have been sufficient. Only after the Battle of the Blackwater, Stannis has a superior sea force, which is exactly the moment that Aurane who grew up at Driftmark falls prisoner to the Crown. So what are the possible clues that indicate that Aurane is an agent for Varys and Aegon?

What’s in a Name?

Aurane, The Golden Wind

Aurane’s first name is literary a golden nugget of a tip-off. The French name Aurane (a variant of Auriane), which would be pronounced as Or-Anne, means golden wind. The prefix or- is the French word for gold. The Latin root aurum means golden or in gold. But there is also the Greek and Latin aura, which means wind, and in Middle English aura was used to indicate a gentle breeze. Is that another way of saying fair weather? The name Aurane then also is a wordplay in the same way as the name Merryweather and implies he, like Taena, is another fair weather friend.

A character called golden wind fits the concept of a sailor as well as the theme of the Golden Company. I go into the Golden Company (prowess and history) more in depth in House Blackfyre. The sellsword company was for hire for gold for decades, but broke its sellsword contract for the very first time in 300 AC, for a blood contract instead, made between Illyrio and Myles Toyne five years after Robert’s Rebellion, after Varys and Illyrio informed Blackheart and Jon Connington that Rhaegar’s son Aegon had survived. Aurane’s golden name makes him suitable company (pun intended), and his blood of Driftmark, even bastard blood, could seek glory in allying with a prince of the (alleged) Targaryen bloodline.

Pirate King or Lord Waters?

When Arianne visits Ghost Hill to take a ship to Cape Wrath, Nymella and Valena Toland mention the appearance of a new pirate king at the Stepstones.

“[…] A new pirate king has set up on Torturer’s Deep. The Lord of the Waters, he styles himself. This one has real warships, three-deckers, monstrous large. […]” (tWoW, Arianne I)

Though it has not yet been confirmed, most readers believe this Lord of the Waters to be Aurane Waters, the bastard of Driftmark, because of the following arguments:

This connection is obvious, and so some readers will suspect a red herring. But if this novel “pirate” is not Aurane Waters, then who else could he be? The chance that someone else managed to get funding to build a fleet of three-decker warships is zero.  The title and location just seals it.

So, I do think that The Lord of the Waters and Aurane Waters are one and the same.  But I also agree the claim is a red herring, not about the man’s identity, but that he is a pirate king. Sure, Aurane’s actions and surface behaviour in aFfC seem to portray him as a greedy short-sighted opportunist, out for his own financial enrichment: he has the crown pay for brand new huge warships and then sails off with them as the city is in disarray. But much of that is based on Cersei’s projection of her own superficial affect, of her own shallow desires. Cersei’s perception of other people and their motives is subpar.

For example, consider the self-chosen style Lord, instead of King or Prince and this without shying away from bastard birth status. Compare this to Prince Daemon Targaryen who called himself King of the Stepstones and wore a crown, or sellsail Salladhor Saan who styled himself as Prince of the Narrow Sea. In fact, Davos opines that a rich pirate usually gets the style prince.

The Lyseni was a smuggler himself, as well as a trader, a banker, a notorious pirate, and the self-styled Prince of the Narrow Sea. When a pirate grows rich enough, they make him a prince. (aCoK, Davos I)

So, the style that presumably Aurane Waters chose for himself, Lord of the Waters, is more humble than his surface characterization in aFfC suggests, or even in comparison to the portrayal of other past pirates and exiles on the Stepstones. It are other people who refer to him as a pirate king, and they only do so based on hearsay.

Now, I do not mean to say that Aurane is a “humble man” per se or without personal ambition. But for all his seeming claim of being able to lord over all the waters, not just Blackwater Bay, the Stepstones or even the Narrow Sea, he does not crown himself. Instead he chooses a feudal style of a nobleman and master who is still bound to a king or queen. That queen is not Cersei Lannister, and that king is not named Baratheon (Tommen or Stannis).

A Small Council

The names and styles are hardly evidence that Aurane Waters was recruited prior to meeting the Golden Company on the Stepstones off page during aDwD. They just are symbolical hints to whom he may align. But one of Aurane Waters’ earliest dialogue is. Though mentioned in aCoK, Aurane has no speaking part until Cersei’s small council meeting in aFfC, Cersei IV. By then he is already her Admiral. First he makes a witty remark how the removal of a head implies that person is dead (about Gregor Clegane), then a little later wishes to discuss the making of a royal fleet of warships, before he eventually brings up the Golden Company.

“Whilst we await Lord Walder’s death, there is another matter,” said Aurane Waters. “The Golden Company has broken its contract with Myr. Around the docks I’ve heard men say that Lord Stannis has hired them and is bringing them across the sea.” (aFfC, Cersei IV)

The clue
“Beneath the Gold the Bitter Steel”, by Urukki Saki, depicting the Golden Company and its current prominent members

Admittedly, you would only pick up on it as a clue during a reread of aFfC, as it requires information from aDwD. When we discuss movements, plans and schemes occurring behind the page scenes in either aFfC or aDwD, we must remember that both books share a timespan of events occurring in different geographical locations, rather than passing of time alone. So, I will sketch the events of various POVs  ocurring in relation to the moment of this council meeting.

The news of the Golden Company breaking its contract with Myr is heavily talked off at various harbors. Arianne discusses the news about the breaking of the contract with Myr with Ser Arys in The Soiled Knight. People of Westeros and Essos alike speculate on the Golden Company’s motives: such as Tyrosh or Lys bribing them. So, when Aurane claims this to be the gossip of the docks of King’s Landing, this appears credible. Cersei, however, instantly dismisses Aurane’s gossip.

“Lord Qyburn has spoken to the crew of that Myrish galley in the bay. They claim the Golden Company is making for Volantis. If they mean to cross to Westeros, they are marching in the wrong direction.” (aFfC, Cersei IV)

There is a Myrish galley at anchor in the bay that would be regarded as the most reliable source for information, not just by Qyburn or Cersei, but also pretty much anyone working in and around the harbor. Some of the crew no doubt frequent bars and brothels or traded. So, it would be very weird that the alleged harbor gossip is about Stannis hiring the Golden Company as Aurane claims, instead of them marching for Volantis. The juxtaposition of what should be the gossip around the docks instead of what Aurane claims it to be is why we ought to question Aurane’s source.

aDwD confirms Cersei’s claim that the Golden Company marches for Volantis, in Tyrion II.

“The Golden Company marches toward Volantis as we speak, there to await the coming of our queen out of the east.”
Beneath the gold, the bitter steel. “I had heard the Golden Company was under contract with one of the Free Cities.”
“Myr.” Illyrio smirked. “Contracts can be broken.” (aDwD, Tyrion II)

Tyrion journeys the southern region of Andalos in a litter with Illyrio around the same time that Cersei has her small council meeting in King’s Landing. But Illyrio is not relaying gossip. He is involved, informed, and responsible for the Golden Company’s marching orders – they are supposed to join up with Aegon, Dany and her Unsullied in Volantis. Once Illyrio learned that Dany hatched dragons from the eggs he gifted her, he attempted to get her back to Pentos on the cogs he sent to Qarth with Selmy Barristan and Belwas. Instead, Dany sailed for Slaver’s Bay to get herself an army of Unsullied. By the time Illyrio learned of Dany conquering Slaver’s Bay, he assumed that she would continue to attack cities to enlarge her army of freed slaves, either marching overland or sail by sea to Volantis.

“This dragon queen who wears her name is a true Targaryen. When I sent ships to bring her home, she turned toward Slaver’s Bay. In a short span of days she conquered Astapor, made Yunkai bend the knee, and sacked Meereen. Mantarys will be next, if she marches west along the old Valyrian roads. If she comes by sea, well … her fleet must take on food and water at Volantis.”[…] “Many and more will perish, but those who survive will be stronger by the time they reach Volantis … where they shall find you and Griff awaiting them, with fresh forces and sufficient ships to carry them all across the sea to Westeros.” (aDwD, Tyrion II)

Aegon, Tyrion and the Golden Company journey to Volantis, because they all expect Dany to show up there.

In other words, around the time of Cersei’s council meeting, Illyrio (and Varys) expected and planned for Aegon and the Golden Company to journey to Westeros from Volantis. And Varys’ task would have been to prepare for Aegon’s and Dany’s coming, to facilitate their invasion. So, even if Aurane points incorrectly to Stannis, it is curious he mentions a tale of the Golden Company coming to Westeros when this plan is only known to Illyrio, Tyrion, Jon Connington, Harry Strickland and presumably Varys.

Intrestingly enough, once the Golden Company sailed off for Westeros (instead of Meereen where Dany had decided to stay), Ser Jorah Mormont overheared the following gossip at the Merchant’s House in Volantis:

“Last night the talk here was all of Westeros. Some exiled lord has hired the Golden Company to win back his lands for him. Half the captains in Volantis are racing upriver to Volon Therys to offer him their ships.” (aDwD, Tyrion VII)

“Some exiled lord”… The gossip at the docks of Volantis is eerily similar to the alleged gossip that Aurane “overheard” months earlier. Of course, the exiled lord is Jon Connington and ultimately Aegon, not Stannis. But certain factions in Westeros would refer to Stannis as an exiled lord within the range of King’s Landing ears. At the very least, the Volantis gossip is a near twin to Aurane’s predicton that the Golden Company would journey to Westeros to battle Cersei for an exile and claimant of the Iron Throne.

Theoretically there are three possible ways how Aurane came this close to the truth:

  • A lucky guess
  • Accidental overhearing
  • An informed agent

As long as we think of this in a real world sense all three ways are equally possible without any further confirmation. But we are not just reading a retelling of events. George is an adept author who uses literary tricks and devices. And each of the above three would use or serve a different literary device. The text will show that the literary set up for the first and second is absent, but amply available for the third option, within the very chapter of the small council.

A lucky guess?

To make a wrong guess in the present, but which turns out to be correct (or close enough) is a literary device of ironic foreshadowing that George does use at times. But those tend to stand out to the reader upon first read. For example he puts it in a private conversation between two beloved characters. The moment is memorable enough that by the time the foreshadowing does occur it will be at the top of your mind again, involving characters or groups the reader is familiar with.

A small council meeting where several people have varying dialogues on a wide spread of topics is not an impossible setting for such a literary device, but a difficult one. The reader requires

  • a broad understanding of the events taking place that most on the council do not.
  • a familiarity with the various council members, so that the reader remembers who said what.

Cersei’s small council in this chapter is no such setting. Merryweather is a new character with dialogue, Aurane gets his first dialogue and we are only starting to get a better grasp on Qyburn. Jaime is not present. (and just had a private dialogue with Cersei in his own chapter just preceding Cersei IV). Only Cersei and Pycelle are familiar to the reader as characters, but we are not sympathetic to them. And while the reader has some insight on what is happening with the topics such as the Ironborn, Stannis and of course Jon Snow, they are not familiar with the Golden Company. Its name and existence is introduced in aFfC, in Arys Oakheart’s sole POV chapter The Soiled Knight through Arianne mentioning it. Cersei’s small council is the second chapter where they are mentioned. Unknown characters debating an unknown subject in a multi-character dialogue is not a setting for ironic foreshadowing.

Aurane’s comment about the Golden Company has a link to literary irony, but that ironic moment occurs in tWoW, Theon I, when Stannis commands Justin Massey to go to Braavos and hire 20 000 sellswords including preferably the Golden Company.

Stannis to Justin Massey: “[…] The Iron Bank has opened its coffers to me. You will collect their coin and hire ships and sellswords. A company of good repute, if you can find one. The Golden Company would be my first choice, if they are not already under contract. Seek for them in the Disputed Lands, if need be. But first hire as many swords as you can find in Braavos, and send them to me by way of Eastwatch. Archers as well, we need more bows.” (tWoW, Theon I)

It is a moment of tragic irony. By then the reader is quite familiar with the Golden Company, its plans and whereabouts. They are already in Westeros fighting for a rival claimant, Aegon Targaryen, rushing towards Storm’s End, the castle that Stannis held to the brink of starvation during Robert’s Rebellion while Mace Tyrell besieged it. That long ago siege was lifted by Ned Stark, lord of Winterfell, after he had an argument with Robert Baratheon over the alleged murder of baby Aegon Targaryen. And now Stannis desires the Golden Company to be hired while he and his army are starving miles away from Winterfell to take it back for Ned’s daughter. More, according to the Pink Letter that Jon Snow received in his last chapter of aDwD, Stannis allegedly is already dead. Not to mention that Mace Tyrell is besieging Storm’s End again.

By tWoW, Theon I the first-time reader may half remember that someone on Cersei’s council once claimed to have heard that Stannis had hired them. We would forgive the reader for not remembering who had mentioned it: “Cersei? Pycelle? Qyburn maybe?” They’d have to look it up, or more likely, smile about Aurane’s comment upon reread.

So, Aurane’s comment is one of the steps leading to tragic irony of Stannis, but it is not the sole one. Arianne’s introduction of the subject of the Golden Company to Arys Oakheart in aFfC, The Soiled Knight, is the most glaring one.

“No,” [Arianne] said. “I would believe it of any of the other free companies, yes. Most of them would change sides for half a groat. The Golden Company is different. A brotherhood of exiles and the sons of exiles, united by the dream of Bittersteel. It’s home they want, as much as gold. Lord Yronwood knows that as well as I do. His forebears rode with Bittersteel during three of the Blackfyre Rebellions.” She took Ser Arys by the hand, and wove her fingers through his own. “Have you ever seen the arms of House Toland of Ghost Hill?”
He had to think a moment. “A dragon eating its own tail?”
“The dragon is time. It has no beginning and no ending, so all things come round again. […]” (aFfC, The Soiled Knight)

My main conclusion here is that Aurane’s remark about the Golden Company coming to Westeros and being hired by Stannis is meant to be ironic upon reread, not first read. And a dialogue or claim that is ironic upon reread does not require to be a lucky guess as literary device.

Put this potential lucky guess against the knowledge that Aurane also steered the council into agreeing to have ten dromonds built for a new fleet. Both subjects were brought up in his first ever dialogue in the same meeting, and he ends up in the right place, at the right time with the right ships. Once you weigh this against “did Aurane make two lucky guesses?” then the option that Aurane had it straight from Varys’ mouth seems far more sensible.

Accidental hearing?

If indeed Aurane’s source was Varys then, we have to consider, in theory, whether he accidentally overheard Varys in disguise talking to one of Illyrio’s merchant captains at the docks. Varys’ disguises are good enough that they fool people unless they are directly accosted by Varys. In that way, Aurane may not even have known his source was Varys and indeed thinks of them as “men around the docks”.

Unintended discovery of crucial information between the plotters Varys and Illyrio has been featured in aGoT: when Arya overhears them as they walk the tunnels beneath the Red Keep. They discuss Dany’s pregnancy and its impact on Khal Drogo. They reference the death of a prior Hand as a solution to deal with Ned Stark having found the bastard. And they mention sorcery and wizardry. Arya then warns her father: that a wizard discussed killing him, and that the princess was pregnant. As a child she does not fully grasp metaphors, lacks background knowledge but also adds her own inference instead of reporting objectively. She assumes the bastard means Jon. She does not know Gendry or Dany exist. And nobody knows that Varys was not involved in the death of Jon Arryn or that he managed to recruit Jon Connington over a decade ago.

Adults who are not trained in objective reporting may infer the wrong identity on vague referrals when eavesdropping as well. If the men Aurane overheard said something along the lines of how the Golden Company “would set sail for Westeros soon to fight for their exiled lord,” Aurane would have understandably jumped to the wrong conclusion that they implied Stannis.

The main issue with “accidental hearing” is that in literature this type of sourcing requires the reader to witness Aurane overhearing Varys. Take Arya’s adventure as an example. Arya was unable to tell her father that her source was Varys (and not a wizard), because she did not yet know him or recognize him. This made it easy for Ned Stark to dismiss it. Meanwhile the reader knows Arya’s source to be genuine, pleading in thought with Ned to believe her.

The reader is unable to verify Aurane’s source, however, since we do not witness it. As a result, Cersei comes across as sensible to dismiss Aurane’s gossip from the docks, especially since she can cite Qyburn’s inquiry with the Myrish captain at anchor in the bay. Meanwhile, to the reader Aurane comes across as an unrealible source who either tries to manipulate Cersei by namedropping Stannis or because he is content with whatever unverified gossip he picks up from “uninformed” men at the docks over a fellow “informed” captain. In other words, George does not reveal Aurane’s source to the reader, because he wants us to dismiss the claim as well as Aurane’s character. I smell a red herring. Therefore “accidental hearing” does not work as an explanation, because it is not written for such a literary use.

Informed Agent

The realisation that George wants us to dismiss Aurane’s reliability as a source (just like Cersei did) is quite telling all in itself, especially, since Aurane turned out be correct about the Golden Company’s intentions. This brings me to the last option: Aurane was an agent of Varys, informed about the Golden Company’s plans and coached by Varys to use half truths and other news of Essos so that Cersei, Qyburn and Pycelle would perceive Aurane as harmless after this small council meeting. And for this option we do have literary tricks that George deploys within the very same chapter of this meeting of the small council.

George puts Varys on the reader’s mind, via Cersei:

  • right at the onset of the meeting,
  • and during Aurane’s fleet request after a comment about Ironborn.

Both times, she reviews his usefulness as a living, breathing Wikipedia, in response to certain characters’ display of knowledge (or lack of it). Her conclusions  about Varys end up contradicting one another. This is how George invites the reader to examine Varys’ manner of reporting at small councils themselves and to compare it with Qyburn and the other members on the small council. It becomes a literary riddle – “Who on this council reports the most like Varys”? Such riddles are ideal to tease and guide readers during a reread, rather than a first read, which works with how Aurane’s info on the Golden Company can only be understood to be a potential clue.

In the first instance, Qyburn and her walk together to the small council, while the bells of the Great Sept clang in mourning for the assassinated High Septon. The bells vex her, but these are unspoken thoughts. When Qyburn assures her that the bells will stop ringing at sunset, she asks him how he knows. He replies with a platitude, and Cersei concludes that Qyburn will serve as well as Varys as her master of whisperers.

The pealing of the bells was louder in the yard. He was only a High Septon. How long must we endure this? The ringing was more melodious than the Mountain’s screams had been, but . . . Qyburn seemed to sense what she was thinking. “The bells will stop at sunset, Your Grace.”
“That will be a great relief. How can you know?”
“Knowing is the nature of my service.”
Varys had all of us believing he was irreplaceable. What fools we were. Once the queen let it become known that Qyburn had taken the eunuch’s place, the usual vermin had wasted no time in making themselves known to him, to trade their whispers for a few coins. It was the silver all along, not the Spider. Qyburn will serve us just as well. (aFfC, Cersei IV)

Cersei is impressed by two abilities that Qyburn displays in this instance:

  • He senses her irritability at the bells.
  • He knows when the mourning bells will stop ringing.

Neither are particularly examples of masterfulness. While Cersei can be stoic (when she wishes to be so), she is not particularly known for masking her irritation. It was easy for Qyburn to realize what bothered her. And how long the Faith would publically mourn the death of a High Septon is not some top secret  you require a spy network for. It is just typical of Cersei to project her own disinterest for anything beyond what is immediately in front of her onto others.

Nothing in the above situation warrants a master of whisperer, let alone Varys paying coin to his spies. Varys relied on more than waving silver for whispers from informants. He used and trained children who can crawl in small spaces, to read various langauges, etc. Cersei’s thought also imply how Varys managed to make it appear like sorcery.

Catelyn considers wizardry for a moment, when Varys asks her to see the dagger.

[Varys] eased himself down into a seat and put his hands together. “I wonder if we might trouble you to show us the dagger?” Catelyn Stark stared at the eunuch in stunned disbelief. He was a spider, she thought wildly, an enchanter or worse. He knew things no one could possibly know, unless … (aGoT, Catelyn IV)

Note too that when Catelyn asks Varys how he could know what Ser Rodrik and Ser Aron Santagar discussed, he (like Qyburn) answers that knowing things is the nature of his service.

“How could you know all that?”
“The whisperings of little birds,” Varys said, smiling. “I know things, sweet lady. That is the nature of my service.” (aGoT, Catelyn IV)

The second time that Cersei thinks of Varys is after Aurane wishes to discuss adding back to their strength at sea.

“Might we discuss the fleet?” asked Aurane Waters. “Fewer than a dozen of our ships survived the inferno on the Blackwater. We must needs restore our strength at sea.”
Merryweather nodded. “Strength at sea is most essential. Could we make use of the ironmen?” asked Orton Merryweather. “The enemy of our enemy? What would the Seastone Chair want of us as the price of an alliance?” (aFfC, Cersei IV)

Lord Orton Merryweather and Ser Harys Swyft contemplate a potential alliance with the Ironborn, with nobody answering Swyft’s question whether Balon Greyjoy still has any brothers and how many there could be.

“Balon Greyjoy is dead, I had heard,” said Ser Harys Swyft. “Do we know who rules the isles now? Did Lord Balon have a son?”
“Leo?” coughed Lord Gyles. “Theo?”
“Theon Greyjoy was raised at Winterfell, a ward of Eddard Stark,” Qyburn said. “He is not like to be a friend of ours.”
“I had heard he was slain,” said Merryweather.
“Was there only one son?” Ser Harys Swyft tugged upon his chin beard. “Brothers. There were brothers. Were there not?”
Varys would have known, Cersei thought with irritation. (aFfC, Cersei IV)

Yes, Varys would have known that Balon Greyjoy had three brothers, one son and a daughter as well as their whereabouts. But most council members there should know of Balon’s brothers. They just choose not to indulge Merryweather and Swyft in a senseless proposal of ripping the North in half, especially when House Bolton needs to beat the Ironborn to rally the northerners behind him.

This particular conversation reads as ironic contrast to the chapters we have been reading about the Kingsmoot at the Iron Islands. And we could suspect, that if Varys was still part of the small council, he might have had some spy reports how one Euron Greyjoy was elected as new ruler of the ironborn in a kingsmoot. But it is also important to pause and second guess whether these small council members should not know better.

Orton Merryweather is the sole man with a legitimate excuse to know little about the Greyjoys: he lived in exile for most of his life in Essos together with his grandfather, and likely did not return to Westeros until after the Greyjoy rebellion. That is a significant background story to determine what several small council members should know, such as Pycelle, Ser Harys Swyft and Aurane.

A close up view into a naval battle by daylight with a ship of the iron fleet in the front, black sails with golden kraken. In the background on the water we see unrecognizable ships in flames. Beyond that we see a large castle on a hill of the shore.
The Iron Fleet by Haryarti

During the Greyjoy Rebellion, Victarion and Euron Greyjoy led the Iron Fleet and burned the Lannister fleet at Lannisport. Later, Stannis Baratheon led Victarion into a trap and smashed the Iron Fleet, including Aeron “Damphair” Greyjoy’s ship. This was before Aeron was a priest of the Drowned God. He ended up captured and a prisoner at Casterly Rock for the remainder of that conflict.

In the end the Golden Storm went down off Fair Isle during Balon’s first rebellion, cut in half by a towering war galley called Fury when Stannis Baratheon caught Victarion in his trap and smashed the Iron Fleet. Yet the god was not done with Aeron, and carried him to shore. Some fishermen took him captive and marched him down to Lannisport in chains, and he spent the rest of the war in the bowels of Casterly Rock, proving that krakens can piss farther and longer than lions, boars, or chickens. (aFfC, The Prophet)

As Tywin’s fan and as a maester, Pycelle should know and remember both the burning of the Lannister fleet and Aeron’s imprisonment at Casterly Rock. He was also reinstalled to Tywin’s small council in aSoS, and present when Victarion’s and Asha’s whereabouts in the North were discussed. We can infer that Pycelle likely refrains from answering Swyft’s question about the brothers, because he does not wish to indulge Harys Swyft and Orton Merryweather any further in their nonsense. Anyone who has ever been in a meeting that got sidetracked by nonsensical fact chasing over aspects that are irrelevant to the subject will know that silence can be the best remedy. We as readers can determine that Pycelle would refrain from indulging this line of questioning, because he points out how the Ironborn want the north, while Cersei already promised it to Roose Bolton.

“They want the north,” Grand Maester Pycelle said, “which our queen’s noble father promised to House Bolton.” (aFfC, Cersei IV)

As father-in-law of Kevan Lannister, Ser Harys Swyft should know better too. Notice how Aeron’s memory of his captivity at the Rock includes some pissing contest between krakens and chickens. Aeron is not thinking about animals here, but sigils, and Swyft’s sigil is a blue “chicken”. Swyft does vaguely remember there were brothers but otherwise does not seem the brightest pencil in the drawer. So, we can conclude he is trying but indeed an ignorant character.

Qyburn seems to be knowledgeable about Balon’s son, Theon and how he was a ward of House Stark. But his suggestion that Theon would not want to ally with the Iron Throne against House Stark is odd oncec we pause to think of it. Did Qyburn forget Theon took Winterfell and as far as Westeros knows killed Bran and Rickon Stark? Is it not Theon who has been accused of burning down Winterfell? He was a Bloody Mummer operating out of Harrenhal, including when Roose Bolton commanded it. In fact, he tended the ravens and messages at Harrenhal, after Roose had maester Tothmure beheaded. It cannot be doubted that Qyburn knows Theon betrayed the Starks and perhaps even that Theon was captured by Ramsay. This means that Qyburn deliberately misrepresents Theon’s loyalties to House Stark. Maybe he is looking out for Roose Bolton, but this shows how Qyburn can use a certain fact and not disclose others to create the false impression, potentially serving two masters.

Of note here is that this whole dialogue that leads to Cersei lamenting Varys’ absence kicks off with Aurane bringing up the subject of a need to restore the fleet and that it is Aurane who concludes it with the order of ten dromonds.

Varys would have known, Cersei thought with irritation. “I do not propose to climb in bed with that sorry pack of squids. Their turn will come, once we have dealt with Stannis. What we require is our own fleet.”
“I propose we build new dromonds,” said Aurane Waters. “Ten, to start with.” (aFfC, Cersei IV)

We could regard Aurane as the framework or the “hull” around the hollow dialogue about the Ironborn. Cersei laments Varys’ absence and Aurane is the sole character who is as silent as Varys during the Ironborn silliness. George thus creates a framework for the reader to see Aurane as Varys’ replacement, not so much to be the master of whisperers, but to manipulate the crown to help Aegon’s homecoming.

I would also argue that Aurane is likely the most familiar with Balon’s brothers in a military sense. He was raised at Driftmark as a recognized bastard of House Velaryon, and is not looked down upon by the noble court. Recognized (aka named) bastards of noble birth- like Edric Storm, Jon Snow, … – are trained and taught like any other trueborn noble child. For House Velaryon and Driftmark this would have been naval tactics and historical naval battles. And since House Velaryon is a vassal to the master of Dragonstone, Stannis Baratheon, who won the Sea Battle off Fair Isle, against Victarion, Aeron and Euron, that battle would have been something Aurane would have heard being discussed often. He would have been around eleven at the time of the Greyjoy Rebellion. Aside from studying maps, he would have re-enacted some form of sword buckling and arguing over who got to play Stannis, the Lord of Driftmark, or one of the villainous Greyjoys.

A rough grey dark sea with grey smoke air and burning longships. In the center is a longship with the unfurled sail with kraken sigil.
The Battle at Fiar Isle, by Tomasz Jedruszek

We now have enough framing by George to ponder the rest of Aurane’s dialogue during the small council.

The first actual subject discussed during the meeting is Prince Doran’s news (by raven message to Pycelle) about the house arrest of the Sandsnakes and his request for justice about Gregor Clegane’s confession of raping and murdering Elia Martell. Cersei shares her decision to send Balon Swann to Sunspear with Gregor’s head. The Hand, Ser Harys Swyft then asks whether the Mountain is dead, which provokes Aurane to say, …

“Ah.” Ser Harys Swyft fumbled at his funny little beard with thumb and forefinger. “He is dead then? Ser Gregor?”
“I would think so, my lord,” Aurane Waters said dryly. “I am told that removing the head from the body is often mortal.” (aFfC, Cersei IV)

By the end of Cersei’s walk of shame in aDwD, Ser Gregor is, nevertheless, to be revealed to be both headless and undead, via Qyburn’s necromancing. Aurane’s dry remark betrays a non magical worldview, like Varys, and very much unlike Qyburn.

The fleet subject and the ironborn comes after, followed by the Freys demanding even more rewards. Qyburn warns the council that there is talk in the pot shops and winesinks that the crown was involved with the red wedding. He suggests they perhaps need to take some Frey heads to appear to dispense justice for what the sparrows call an affront to the gods. Both Aurane and Qyburn reference it as the red wedding. Aurane then guides the subject to the Golden Company and Stannis. When the north is dicussed, the council decides they want Lord Wyman Manderly to behead Stannis’s onion smuggler.

“Just this morning there was another bird. Stannis has sent his onion smuggler to treat with White Harbor on his behalf. Manderly has clapped the wretch inside a cell. He asks us what he should do with him.”[..] “I have instructed Lord Manderly to have his head off forthwith. That should put an end to any chance of White Harbor supporting Stannis.”
“Stannis will need another Hand,” observed Aurane Waters with a chuckle. “The turnip knight, perhaps?”
“A turnip knight?” said Ser Harys Swyft, confused. “Who is this man? I have not heard of him.” Waters did not reply, except to roll his eyes. (aFfC, Cersei IV)

Aurane makes an ableist joke here about Stannis and Ser Davos as his Hand. That joke may have earned him Cersei’s trust, but I hope you as reader see that we now have the following subject build up in which Aurane involves himself via dialogue.

  1. new war fleet,
  2. Golden Company coming to Westeros
  3. smuggling “food” (onions) into Storm’s End during Mace Tyrell’s siege

The conversation then moves to Sansa and Jon Snow’s letter as Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch. As the council discusses Jon Snow’s “treason” by giving Stannis land and castles, Aurane suggests that the Crown could recommend the lords of the realm to send their poachers and thieves to Aurane to crew the ships with oarsmen.

“Our new dromonds will need oarsmen,” said Aurane Waters. “Let us instruct the lords to send their poachers and thieves to me henceforth, instead of to the Wall.”
Qyburn leaned forward with a smile. “The Night’s Watch defends us all from snarks and grumkins. My lords, I say that we must help the brave black brothers.”
Cersei gave him a sharp look. “What are you saying?”
“This,” Qyburn said. “For years now, the Night’s Watch has begged for men. Lord Stannis has answered their plea. Can King Tommen do less? His Grace should send the Wall a hundred men. To take the black, ostensibly, but in truth . . .”
“. . . to remove Jon Snow from the command,” Cersei finished, delighted. I knew I was right to want him on my council. (aFfC, Cersei IV)

On the one hand, Aurane’s dismissal of the Wall’s need for his own future ships reflects the negligence of so many, including by Varys. But within the context of the coming together of all the elements of Aegon’s homecoming and successful taking of Storm’s End, this likely foreshadows how Aegon too will ignore the Wall’s plight. But I suspect Aurane’s comment on manning the ships prompting Cersei’s plot to have Jon Snow assassinated is a timing foreshadowing.

If this bastard boy is truly his father’s son, he will not suspect a thing. Perhaps he will even thank me, before the blade slides between his ribs. (aFfC, Cersei IV)

With the “timing” I mean that timeline wise Aegon captures Storm’s End via smuggle route around the moment that Bowen Marsh attempts to assassinate Jon.

Even as the small council is concluded, Aurane adds one more piece of information.

“One last thing, Your Grace,” said Aurane Waters, in an apologetic tone. “I hesitate to take up the council’s time with trifles, but there has been some queer talk heard along the docks of late. Sailors from the east. They speak of dragons . . .”
“. . . and manticores, no doubt, and bearded snarks?” Cersei chuckled. “Come back to me when you hear talk of dwarfs, my lord.” She stood, to signal that the meeting was at an end. (aFfC, Cersei IV)

The content itself is not newsworthy to either the reader or Cersei, but completes the three plot points of Aegon and the Golden Company. It is yet another reference to Varys, specifically with Aurane as a stand-in, because this non-news to the reader was already introduced to Tywin’s small council in aSoS (with Cersei present):

The eunuch drew a parchment from his sleeve. “A kraken has been seen off the Fingers.” He giggled. “Not a Greyjoy, mind you, a true kraken. It attacked an Ibbenese whaler and pulled it under. There is fighting on the Stepstones, and a new war between Tyrosh and Lys seems likely. Both hope to win Myr as ally. Sailors back from the Jade Sea report that a three-headed dragon has hatched in Qarth, and is the wonder of that city—”
“Dragons and krakens do not interest me, regardless of the number of their heads,” said Lord Tywin. (aSoS, Tyrion III)

Overall, Cersei’s small council meeting in aFfC is a mirror of the one with Tywin’s:  discussing alliances with the Greyjoys, the ironmen at Moat Cailin, wildlings, the Wall’s cry for help against the wildlings, krakens, the Vale and who gets to lead it, … In that sense, Cersei’s meeting is a continuation on the Lannister attempts to hold onto power via assassination, treachery and their ineptness at wielding soft power. But that is exactly why it is so interesting that Aurane is the character who gets to say the information updates that Varys volunteered in the above.

We can now conclude on the following 5 tips coalescing with Aurane’s dialogue:

  1. Aurane’s war fleet,
  2. Golden Company coming to Westeros
  3. Storm’s End via smuggle route
  4. around the time of the attempt on Jon Snow’s life
  5. the word “dragon”

Finally, I want to address how Aurane’s dialogue and information sharing matches with Varys’ MO: Varys would flood the consecutive councils with information, from drunken talk in the potshops, to news sailors from Essos. Varys let the king or Hand decide what they consider relevant or not. This created an image of impartiality and therefore reliability. This tactic was how a spymaster – slave born, and foreigner – managed to remain master of whisperers to the Mad King, Aerys’ enemy Robert Baratheon, and the consecutive Hands of the King (Jon Arryn, Eddard Stark, Tyrion and Tywin Lannister).

Once Varys knew what subject piqued a king’s or hand’s interest, this then became his angle to manipulate them, much like a social media algorithm does with us. Varys used the wanderings of Viserys and Danearys as a jangling key for Robert, plots by Cersei against Robert’s life with Ned Stark, critical drunken talk in winesinks with Joffrey, Joffrey’s or Cersei’s schemes to Tyrion … Occasionally, he would still drop some reports on subjects that disinterest the ruler but preserved Varys’ image of impartiality. This way Varys also avoided being accused of having withhold crucial information before their impact was felt in the realm.

I will touch slightly on the claim that Varys “always speaks the truth”. Varys is not a honest person. He is a deceiver. Obviously, whenever he talks, he will lean to the truth as close as possible, for the most practical reason – he cannot afford being caught in a lie. Other readers have pointed this pragmatic tactic out long before me.

Varys is the only one in the books who is actually an intelligence professional. That means he’s the only one who brings a professional’s self-discipline to the job. Littlefinger is good, very good, at it, but he’s a gifted amateur playing for love of the game and it shows. He does and says things just to pat himself on the back and prove to himself how much more clever he is than the dolts he’s using as pawns. Varys never does that. The reason that’s important in this context is that, being a professional, Varys is probably the only one to realize just how damaging being caught in an outright lie could be to his entire operation. (Post by Littlestfinger, June 12, 2014, on Westeros.org on “Varys does not lie. Does he?”

The hardest thing about a lie is remembering it and keeping track of it. So, yes in my opinion Varys tells the truth most of the time. He mostly lies by omission, tweaking words to create the wrong impression or interpretation, and choosing his timing well. Aurane’s hearsay from around the docks serves him in the same way. It is bait to check what Cersei really knows now that she has Qyburn as spymaster and how much she is interested in the various political development in Essos. The sole difference is that Aurane is more willing to mix in a lie (Stannis’ involvement). It serves him, however, because this is how he makes it clear he is not serving Stannis anymore.  And if he switched his allegiance from Stannis to Varys’ Aegon, then this is the truth at heart of it all. Similarly, Varys used news on Dany and Viserys to appear disloyal to the dragons, while his loyalty is to another dragon.

A Bastard’s Motive

Most readers consider Aurane mostly an opportunist who shops around or is for sale to whomever promises him the biggest reward. For example, BryndenBFish proposes that initially Aurane may have sought to curry favour with Stannis, because of his meritocratic leanings. He rewarded Davos – commoner and smuggler – first with knighthood and later lordship. And only a king can legitimize a bastard. So, Aurane may have hoped to be rewarded Driftmark in case his half-brother Monford Velaryon died during the course of the war. But his capture at the Blackwater intervened with this, and then he attampted to ingratiate himself with the Tyrells, etc. Varys supposedly noticed this from a distance and bought Aurane with promises. The issue I have with this take is that it relies on the facade of Aurane as conman, rather than agent, and ignores several of the literary links George is establishing to a deeper motive.

It must be said that we only acquired enough background information to consider alternative motives instead of opportunism, since the various publications about the Dance of the Dragons: the novelettes The Princess and the Queen (December 3, 2013), The Rogue Prince (June 17, 2014), the coffee table book The World of Ice and Fire (October 28th, 2014) and Fire and Blood (November 20th, 2018). BryndenBfish’s proposal of 2016 had enough information to question this image of the opportunist, but not enough to come with a well founded alternative. Fire and Blood reveals Alyn “Oakenfist” Velaryon’s chosen epitath for his brother’s grave – loyal. 

I think that Aurane’s motive is loyalty: to his late brother, to Driftmark, to his nephew, to the legacy and ancestry of House Velaryion, to the Prince of Dragonstone, to house Targaryen. And I believe that Alyn Oakenfist is his personal hero. I know that sounds the furthest from how you perceive Aurane, but I would not make this claim if there is no foundation for this in text, through background, symbolism, literary referencing and logic.

Driftmark?

Going home and acquiring the homeland is at least the goal of Aegon, Jon Connington and the Golden Company. So it is not without reason to suppose Aurane wants his home Driftmarke. But if ever Aurane had a chance to gain Driftmark as a seat that opportunity presented itself when he was Cersei’s admiral. All those who remained loyal to Stannis after the Battle of the Blackwater were stripped of their seats and lands by King Joffrey and his Hand Tywin Lannister. These seats were given to other men either in writing or by force, in the Crownlands, the Riverlands and Stormlands, regardless who occupies it currently.  The taking, sieging and gifting of castles, lands is a recurring theme in the very small council we already analysed. The Freys want even more seats. Jon Snow is a traitor in their eyes for gifting Stannis castles and land. Heck, they even discuss carving up the North in two to give one half to the ironborn and the other half to House Bolton.  But quite notably Driftmark is never one of those seats!

According to the appendix of aSoS and Stannis the Lord of Tides is Aurane’s nephew, the prior Lord Monford’s son Monterys (six years old). Lke his father, Monterys still supports Stannis: Jon sees the Driftmark seahorse banners amongst Stannis’ army as it descends on Mance Rayder’s host at the Wall. And regardless whether Monterys is at Driftmark or in the North, Cersei spells out that Lord Waters is an empty honor, because he has no lands or castle.

Rosby’s gold would help refresh their coffers, and Rosby’s lands and castle could be bestowed upon one of her own as a reward for leal service. Lord Waters, perhaps. Aurane had been hinting at his need for a seat; his lordship was only an empty honor without one. He had his eye on Dragonstone, Cersei knew, but there he aimed too high. Rosby would be more suitable to his birth and station. (aFfC, Cersei IX)

Cersei claims that Aurane wants Dragonstone but considers gifting him the Rosby lands and castle instead. So, Aurane clearly failed to mention Driftmark by name. Can there be any doubt that if Aurane had requested for Driftmark, that Cersei would have gifted Driftmark’s seat on paper instantly, when it was in the hands of a child lord who supported Stannis? Of course not.

Perhaps, Aurane hinted at Driftmark without naming it, and Cersei mistook it to mean Dragonstone, because she seems obtuse to these matters overall, despite the fact that she knows he is referred to as the bastard of Driftmark. That argument seems to hold up until we consider that Aurane’s non-mention of Driftmark is matched by non-action in physically taking Driftmark once he sails off with the dromonds. Instead he sails for the Stepstones.

I tend to take Cersei’s certainty about Aurane wanting Dragonstone with a big grain of salt. Not because I doubt that Aurane may have asked for or hinted at Dragonstone. But because I think that if he did, it was part of the plan to facilitate the return for Aegon and Dany, not for himself. Despite the fact that Dragonstone was “captured” and Paxter Redwyne sailed off for the Reach, Aurane himself did not sail with Cersei’s monstrous new war ships to Dragonstone, but sailed for the Stepstones.

The Bastards

The contradiction about Aurane supposedly wanting land with the title, but being absolutely fine wit just taking a war fleet and sail off to the Stepstones to be Lord of the Waters opens the door to the possiblity that Aurane Waters stayed true and loyal to the family he grew up with, despite being a rogue and thief (towards the Lannisters). Is it that unheard of that bastards may be loyal to their house? Jon Snow refused Stannis’s offer of Winterfell, though in his heart he desires it. Taking it from his half-sisters feels like a betrayal to him, even if they are wed to a Lannister (or Bolton). Jon Snow could only ever accept Winterfell as his seat if it was a Stark’s dying wish. Could Aurane Waters may have similar loyalties to House Velaryon and the son of his late half brother?

Perhaps you consider the comparison between Aurane and Jon laughable. But let me remind you that Aurane did ask for the poachers and thieves normally sent to the Wall to be sent to him instead. We can view that as wrong and villainous, because the Wall is in need of defending. Simultaneously, in a literary sense, George manoevered the reader to consider Aurane as commanding a penal colony, which is Jon’s role. And without Jon’s POV we might end up believing Jon is an opportunistic traitor who killed his brother Qhorin halfhand to be a wildling, around the same time that Aurane bends the knee to Joffrey. My point is that what we saw and heard about Aurane in aFfC through Cersei’s POV may compare to how the reader would perceive Jon Snow if Mance had been the POV in aSoS.

Do we have any indications that Aurane and his half brother grew up together? At least, Aurane’s nickname, the bastard of Driftmark, indicates that he grew up at Driftmark, alongside his trueborn sibling, not unlike Jon Snow and Ned Stark’s trueborn children. Aurane and his half brother never appear together on page, but then Lord Monford and Aurane appear on page only a handful of times in total in aCoK. Do these glimpses give us enough indication what type of relation these two may have had?

We are first introduced to House Velaryon in Cressen’s Prologue. As supporter of Stannis since the early hour, Lord Monford Velaryon is present at the feast when Cressen attempts to poison Melisandre. We get a short description of his looks and attire.

Cressen looked over the knights and captains and lords sitting silent. […] Handsome Lord Velaryon chose sea-green silk, the white gold seahorse at his throat matching his long fair hair. (aCoK, Prologue)

A close up portrait of a handsome man with long silver-blonde hair separated in the middle, and draped across his broad shoulders. He wears a teal green silk shirt or tunic, finished with golden thread embroidery at the rims and a brooch of a silver seahore. He sits in front of a window with view on a castle or fort with square towers on an island or cliff in the distance. We also see some of the water that surround the castle.
Monford Velaryon. Generated by Elio M. García, Jr.. using Stable Diffusion, an AI art generation software, and is published in accordance with its license. (I prefer artwork from actual artists, and will replace this AI generated portrait gladly if a quality alternative becomes available)

Stannis claims to Cressen that Monford is impatient to attack and to Davos that he believes only steel will decide the matter, not words on parchment. He reveals that Monford together with Salla advized Stannis to sail against Joffrey instead of trying to take Storm’s End. He also predicts that Velaryon would all be for scaling the walls of Storm’s End to take the castle. All of this is hearsay, though they portray Lord Monford as a young impatient brave man, eager for battle and making a name for himself.

Lord Monford is vey much a background character, but there is one interesting contradicton about him. When the Lord of Driftmark attended the burning of the Seven at Dragonstone, Davos notes how he watches Stannis more than the spectacle and he believes Lord Velaryion would consider the onion knight to be beneath him.

[…] and Lord Velaryon was watching the king rather than the conflagration. Davos would have given much to know what he was thinking, but one such as Velaryon would never confide in him. The Lord of the Tides was of the blood of ancient Valyria, and his House had thrice provided brides for Targaryen princes;  (aCoK, Davos I)

And yet, Davos may be mistaken, because this happens after the burning of the Seven.

When Davos arrived at the Stone Drum, a dozen highborn knights and great bannermen were just leaving. Lords Celtigar and Velaryon each gave him a curt nod and walked on while the others ignored him utterly, but Ser Axell Florent stopped for a word. (aCoK, Davos I)

Monford is one of the very few men who recognizes his existence, alongside Lord Celtigar of another ancient house with old Valyrian blood. This is contrasted against lickspittle Ser Axell Florent who is overly familiar to Davos, and contrasted against the majority of lords ignoring Davos completely. In other words, with that one nod, Monford signals he regards Davos Seaworth his equal or peer, despite his birth status. If so, then Lord Monford shares Stannis’ pencheant for meritocracy and that he had similar sentiments about his half brother.

Of course, Monford’s views may not have been shared equally by Aurane. Aurane’s ableist remark about Stannis requiring a new Hand for example, may be a sign that Aurane feels superior over Davos in a manner that his brother Monford did not. But Stannis was more the butt of his joke and Aurane must distance himself verbally from Stannis at the Small Council meeting.

Admitedly, the bastard of Driftmark is not present alongside Lord Velaryon on Dragonstone during the feast and meeting with Stannis. But that does not negate the two men may have an amical relationship. Jon was kept out of royal sight at feasts and hunts during Robert’s visit of Winterfell, because Ned Stark wanted to keep people from wondering about Jon’s parentage – out of sight, out of mind. Remember that during this feast Stannis claims he is king over Joffrey, because the latter is Cersei’s bastard of incest. Lord Velaryon would have been foolish to insist that his bastard brother get a seat at the dais during meetings where Joffrey’s bastardry is part of the dais talk. Clearly, Aurane would have to get noticed by merit first with Stannis. Aside from youth, this might have added to Monford’s impatience to see battle.

While prejudice against bastards is prevalent, some regions and houses recognize  and thank their house’s survival and honor on an ancestor who was bastard born. House Velaryon is such a one. Their ancestor is not some Brandon Stark in tales forgotten like that of Bael the bard, but in a recent, publically and historically recognized lineage deeply tied to the Dance of the Dragons, the civil war between the Blacks and Greens. The current house Velaryon descends from Alyn “Oakenfist” Velaryon, the legitimized bastard Alyn of Hull. He became Lord of the Tides after the death of Lord Corlys “the Seasnake” Velaryon. The manner in which he became the lord and seafaring hero would make any descendant proud that this bastard was their ancestor. If there might have been shame and hiding of bastards before the Dance of the Dragons with House Velaryon, Alyn certainly would have promoted inclusion of the children parented out of wedlock.

Alyn Velaryon and Aliandre Martell, by Martina Fackova
How Alyn of Hull became Corlys Velaryon’s heir

Corlys Velaryon was the husband of princess Rhaenys Targaryen, the Queen Who Never Was. They had two children, Laenor and Laena Velaryon. Laenor was Rhaenyra’s spouse and officially the father of her first three sons – Jacaerys, Lucerys and Joffrey Velaryon. However, Rhaenyra’s sons looked suspiciously more like Rhaenyra’s sworn shield Ser Harwin Strong and Laenor Velaryon was rumored or known to be gay. Laena was Daemon Targaryen’s second wife. They had two daughters, Baela and Rhaena Targaryen.

Laenor and Laena died in short succession at the start of 120 AC. And when Corlys fell gravely ill in 126 AC, his eldest “grandson” Jacaerys Velaryon stood to inherit. But he was also Rhaenyra’s heir to the throne. So, Rhaenyra suggested that Lucerys should be named heir to Driftmark. Corlys’ nephew, Vaemond Velaryon publically claimed Rhaenyra’s eldest three sons had been fathered by Harwin Strong, and lost his head for the treason. The remaining five nephews of Corlys petitioned their case with the crown and King Viserys had their tongues for it, to be forever known as the Silent Five.

Lucerys Velaryon did not surive long enough to actually inherit Driftmark. He died at the onset of the Dance, when Aemond Targaryen chased him on Vhagar after a diplomatic mission at Storm’s End. During the Sowing (the search for dragonriders for the Blacks), Marilda of Hull proclaimed her two sons were fathered by Laenor – Addam (15) and Alyn of Hull (13 or 14). Many believe they were Corlys’ bastard sons rather than his grandsons. Crucial is that Marilda of Hull came out to declare them Laenor’s sons only after Rhaenys’ death at Rook’s Rest. Corlys pressed for them to be legitimized by Rhaenyra (as Queen) and she relented. As such, Corlys named Addam of Hull – who claimed Laenor’s Seasmoke – his new heir.

After two of Rhaenyra’s dragonseeds betrayed her to join Prince Daeron Targaryen and the Greens at Tumbleton, a paranoid Rhaenyra ordered Addam Velaryon preemptively arrested for harsh questioning. Corlys warned Addam before he could be arrested and Addam fled on Seasmoke. For this Corlys was thrown in a cell while Addam gathered an army of four thousand from the Gods Eye to attack Tumbleton at night and prove his loyalty to Rhaenyra. He won, but at the cost of his own life. Inthe end, the Sea Snake outlived both Rhaenyra and Aegon II. He died in 132 AC and Addam’s brother, Alyn “Oakenfist” Velaryon, née Alyn of Hull, was the sole “direct” heir left.

But even this was not without contest. The silent five had fought on the side of the Greens and two of them survived the Dance: Ser Malentine and Ser Rhogar Velaryon. They petitioned with Aegon III to be recognized as Corlys’ heirs. After their request was denied, they plotted to assassinate Alyn. Malentine died in the attempt, while Ser Rhogar was taken by the Driftmark guards. The latter was condemned to death but took the black. After which Alyn’s lordship was uncontested.
The Loyalty of a seahorse
A woman in trousers and long brown hair all the way to the small of her back stands with her back to the viewer at a rocky shore and gravestone that has the word "loyal" written on it. Beyond the grave is a choppy sea with a fleet of ships and the sunlight near the horizon breaking through the clouds of a grey sky. Painted.
Marilda the Bold, by Aria Phan aka Dragonsaria, depicting Marilda of Hull standing at the grave of her son Addam of Hull Velaryon

If Aurane grew up at Driftmark, as his nickname implies, then he would have been familiar with the histories and ancestors of House Velaryon and we could assume that especially the story of Alyn of Hull would be one of his favourites. And it is safe to presume that Aurane knows of the story of Addam and Alyn about loyalty. Rhaenyra’s fears of betrayal by the dragonseeds led to Addam being accused of planning treason, Corlys Velaryon’s imprisonment and Addam’s suicadal victory over the Greens at Tumbleton. When finally Addam’s bones were returned to Driftmark, his brother Lord Alyn Velarion raised a grave and had only one word written on it – Loyal.

At moonrise the riverlords abandoned the field to the carrion crows, fading back into the hills. One of them, the boy Ben Blackwood, carried with him the broken body of Ser Addam Velaryon, found dead beside his dragon.
His bones would rest at Raventree Hall for eight years, but in 138 AC his brother, Alyn, would have them returned to Driftmark and entombed in Hull, the town of his birth. On his tomb is engraved a single word: LOYAL. Its ornate letters are supported by carvings of a seahorse and a mouse. (Fire and Blood – The Dying of the Dragons)

That site of the gravestone must still exist. Even if Aurane was not close with Lord Monford or not instructed by a maester, even smallfolk would tell tales. Once George published this background detail for bastards of House Velaryon and had a memorial erected for it on the island, it became relevant to what could motivate or influence Aurane Waters.

heraldry: a knight's helm with vizor up, and leafs in aquamarine (teal or seagreen) and a shield in front of it with a golden border, aquamarin background and silver seahorse (Aquamarine, a seahorse argent), and an unfurling banner or scarf with the motto words "The Old, the True, the Brave"
Heraldry of House Velaryon, Aquamarine, a seahorse argent and house motto “The Old, the True, the Brave”, source Heraldry section of the Citadel of Westeros.org

While the motto of House Velaryon is “The Old, the True, the Brave“, one could say that the motto for the bastards of Driftmark is LOYAL, with capital letters. Alongside the word loyal on Addam’s gravestone were carved a seahorse and a mouse. Basically it implies Addam’s parentage of a Velaryon, as the seahorse is the sigil of House Velaryon and Marilda of Hull, whose nickname was Mouse. Her merchant cog on which she brought Aegon II back to King’s Landing from Dragonstone, after Rhaenyra’s death was also called Mouse. And she built House Mouse as a manse overlooking Hull on the island of Driftmark.

In the essays of The Trail of the Red Stallion I established how George uses horses as a mirror or hint about the characters that ride it. In its most general view, horses are stand-in for people. In this sense the seahorse is a symbolic play on sea-people or mariners. We should pay attention to the names of their ships, as much as we should with the equivalent of character’s horses. Moreover, in the essay about Dany being Saint George’s true dragon, I argue that Dany’s silver horse are her wings to her dragonriding soul. I also show how ships are dragons with sails for wings. So, a silver seahorsetherefore symbolizes a sea dragon, or a family of seafarers with dragonblood ties to Targaryens who exchanged the batwings of dragons for sails and oars. 

Lord Monford is present at the Battle of the Blackwater and at Dragonstone with four of his war galleys: Pride of Driftmark, Bold Laughter, Harridan and Seahorse.

Wooden wings had sprouted from the Wraith and Lady Marya as well. The three galleys kept pace, their blades churning the water. “Slow cruise,” Davos called. Lord Velaryon’s silver-hulled Pride of Driftmark had moved into her position to port of Wraith, and Bold Laughter was coming up fast, but Harridan was only now getting her oars into the water and Seahorse was still struggling to bring down her mast. (aCoK, Davos III)

Lord Monford captains the Pride of Driftmark, and since he perishes with his silver-hulled flagship during the Battle of the Blackwater, it is implied he is the perished pride of House Velaryon. Add Bold Laughter and Harridan (synonym to hag or crone), and we have House Velaryon’s motto of “the Old, the True, the Brave”. Bold is often seen as brave and a harridan usually means an old woman. During the battle of the Blackwater, a trebuchet’s boulder did for Bold Laughter, while Harridan burned down.

On the walls of King’s Landing, spitfires were belching death, and the great trebuchets behind the Mud Gate were throwing boulders. One the size of an ox crashed down between Black Betha and Wraith, rocking both ships and soaking every man on deck. Another, not much smaller, found Bold Laughter. The Velaryon galley exploded like a child’s toy dropped from a tower, spraying splinters as long as a man’s arm. […`] Fifty feet high, a swirling demon of green flame danced upon the river. It had a dozen hands, in each a whip, and whatever they touched burst into fire. He saw Black Betha burning, and White Hart and Loyal Man to either side. Piety, Cat, Courageous, Sceptre, Red Raven, Harridan, Faithful, Fury, they had all gone up, Kingslander and Godsgrace as well, the demon was eating his own. Lord Velaryon’s shining Pride of Driftmark was trying to turn, but the demon ran a lazy green finger across her silvery oars and they flared up like so many tapers. For an instant she seemed to be stroking the river with two banks of long bright torches. (aCoK, Davos III)

Seahorse seems to have survived the inferno. It is as if House Velaryon is stripped of its formal words and the bare essential. And that means the word on the gravestone, “Loyal”, is all that remains. And indeed in the lost Bold Laughter we have a tie to the ancestral Oakenfist: Alyn commanded a merchant fleet to Dorne and the Free Cities on Bold Marilda. Even if pride and bold laughter was lost, the foundation remained, even for Aurane who was captured. For a silver seahorse is like a wingless bat (dragon), a mouse.

So where lies House Velaryon’s loyalty really? To the Iron Throne, the Lord of Dragonstone, the Faith or the Valyrian blood? Officially and historically they serve Dragonstone. But I would argue that ultimately a Velaryon’s loyalty is rooted in the blood of Old Valyria. They themselves are Valyrian as is House Celtigar.

The Velaryons came from old Valyrian stock, however, and some had the same silvery hair as the dragonkings of old. (aFfC, Cersei III)

It is not exactly known when House Velaryon or Celtigar settled on their respective islands of Blackwater Bay, but we do know it was well before House Targaryen moved to Dragonstone. Twelve years before the Doom of Valyaria, the Targaryens resettled from Old Valyria onto Dragonstone on account of the dreams that Daenys the Dreamer had about what would befall the peninsula of Valyria. The Doom of Valyria occurred in 102 BC, so little over 4 centuries ago. That means House Targaryen moved to Dragonstone in 114 BC. But they did not build the castle of Dragonstone. It was built by the dragonlords of Valyria two centuries prior to this.

Perhaps in preparation for their crossing of  the narrow sea, the Valyrians also established their westernmost outpost on the isle that would come to be known as Dragonstone some two hundred years before the Doom. No king opposed them — and though the local lords of the narrow sea made some effort to resist it, the strength of Valyria was too great. With their arcane arts, the Valyrians raised the Citadel at Dragonstone. Two centuries passed—centuries in which the coveted Valyrian steel began to trickle into the Seven Kingdoms more swiftly than before—though not swiftly enough for all the lords and kings who desired it. And although the sight of a dragonlord flying high above Blackwater Bay was not unknown, it occurred more frequently as time passed. Valyria felt its outpost was secured, and the dragonlords thus continued their schemes and intrigues on their native continent. (tWoIaF – Ancient History: The Doom of Valyria)

So, about six centuries before the current events (so 300 BC) a westernmost outpost was created on Dragonstone as was the castle by the dragonlords of Valyria. And it was not a permanent residence for any dragonlord family until the Targaryens decided to relocate there. If we look at the map, we see that Driftmark acts like a shield for Dragonstone against any threat from Duskendale or Massey’s Hook. Meanwhile Celtigar’s Claw Isle can forewarn threats sailing from the Vale or Maidenpool. So, while the Velaryons certainly had a commercial benefit in settling on Driftmark this close to Duskendale, they no doubt patrolled the Gullet to prevent Westerosi from inspecting Dragonstone for dragon eggs.

Blackwater Bay from King's Landing to Massey's Hook, Driftmark, Dragonstone and Claw Isle south of Cracklaw Point
Blackwater Bay from King’s Landing to Massey’s Hook, Driftmark, Dragonstone and Claw Isle south of Cracklaw Point (The Lands of Ice and Fire maps, The West)

House Velaryon is historically sworn to Dragonstone. We tend to take this in the feudal sense of a vassal to his lord. Once Stannis is Lord or Prince of Dragonstone, it therefore is logical to expect House Velaryion to be loyal to Stannis. It works fine from the current feudal position they have in relation to Dragonstone, since the conquering. But if House Velaryon acted as a military marine shield for Dragonstone – an island where dragonlords could hatch or preserve clutches of dragon eggs outside of Valyria – before the Doom of Valyria even, before the Targaryens claimed lordship over the volcanic island, then their fealty and loyalty is not just to the one who is named Lord of Dragonstone, but to Valyrian dragonlord blood. The Doom simplified it by making the Targaryens the sole dragonlord family to survive, and Aegon’s conquering brought this relation with House Velaryon into the  feudal framing of a kingdom. After the conquering, Dragonstone remained a secondary home to Targaryens – usually serving as a home to the heir to the Iron Throne or the next in line – as well as an island where dragons would lay their clutches of dragon eggs.

So, it seems to me that House Velaryon settled onto Driftmark at the latest around the time the dragonlords picked Dragonstone as an outpost, to act as a mariner shield, and control trade of Valyrian steel this close to Duskendale, Gulltown and Maidenpool. And their first settling on Driftmark may predate that moment by several generations. The fact that the seat of the Velaryons is called the Driftwood Throne and the settlement is tied to a legend of the Merling King seems to indicate this.

Corlys Velaryon became a lord after his grandsire’s death and used his wealth to raise a new seat, High Tide, to replace the damp, cramped castle Driftmark and house the ancient Driftwood Throne—the high seat of the Velaryons, which legend claims was given to them by the Merling King to conclude a pact. (tWoIaF – The Targaryen Kings: Jaehaerys I)

Nobody refers to a seat as a throne, unless they were regarded at least a petty king at some point. The legend of the Merling King helps House Velaryon in creating an image where they never aspired to be more than the Dragonlords of Valyria. Nevertheless they might have, once, before the dragonlords scouted out Dragonstone as outpost. The Merling King is a legendary god tied to the Narrow Sea, beyond the Blackwater Bay, predating the Faith of the Seven. While the Andals were still conquering all of the Vale, a sorceress on Witch Isle, Ursula Upcliff, called herself the bride of the Merling King.

By that time the Andals controlled threequarters of the Vale and had begun to fight amongst themselves, as had the First Men before them. Robar Royce saw opportunity in their disunity. Across the Vale, a handful of First Men still held out against the Andals; the Redforts of Redfort, the Hunters of Longbow Hall, the Belmores of Strongsong, and the Coldwaters of Coldwater Burn chief amongst them. One by one, Robar made alliance with each of them, and many smaller clans and houses besides, bringing them to his cause with marriages, grants of land, gold, and (in one celebrated case) by outshooting the Lord Hunter in an archery contest (legend claims that King Robar cheated). So honeyed was his tongue that he even won the allegiance of Ursula Upcliff, a reputed sorceress who called herself bride of the Merling King. (tWoIaF – The Vale)

This makes me believe that House Velaryon settled on Driftmark before the Faith of the Seven was widely followed south of the Riverlands, the Crownlands and the Stormlands. This would explain why the Velaryons used a local seagod as the one who gifted them the right to rule Blackwater Bay from Driftmark. This would be the god the smallfolk, petty kings and lords of the surrounding area would have heeded. All of this explains why Lord Monford ignores the burning of the Seven at Dragonstone, but instead watches Stannis Baratheon instead. It would also be a possible motive for a ship to be called Harridan instead of Crone.

Regardless, the Andals (Qarlong the Great) and their faith were eventually destroyed by dragonlords of Valyria during the Scouring of Lorath, before the Boash settled in Lorath around 1436 BC, even after the Andals had started to conquer Westeros. So, a Valyrian house that sails and resides near the harbor of Duskendale of House Darklyn (First Men) would not have felt the need to follow the Faith before the Conquering. Aegon the Conquerer’s descendants only adopt the Faith to smoothen their rule over Westeros. As global seafaring adventures, the Velaryons lack the specific incentive to be followers of the Faith other than performative.

Of course, House Velaryon is not without its personal ambition, and some Velaryons pursued ambitions that made them act against the Targaryen seated on Dragonstone and even the lord of Driftmark. While the Sea Snake was loyal to Daemon and Rhaenyra, his nephews, the silent five, acted against Rhaenyra, both when she is Princess of Dragonstone as well as crowned Queen. They fought alongside Aegon II, all in the hope to acquire Driftmark.

During Aerys II’s reign and the Year of the False Spring, Lord Lucerys Velaryon is one of the lickspittles who spoke ill of Rhaegar, the Prince of Dragonstone. He helped to fan the hostilities between the mad king and his heir. It is unclear what befell Lord Lucerys during the rebellion, for now. Although it is safe to assume that if he survived the rebellion, he likely was part of the royal fleet at Dragonstone that was smashed in the storm during Dany’s birth. We do not know the relation between Lucerys and Monford, but we do know that by 299 AC Stannis defines Monford as a young lord, who is eager to see battle. This means that Monford was a child still himself during Robert’s Rebellion, like Aurane was.

By the time the series of aSoIaF starts though, the three brothers Baratheon are the ones left closest to the dragon blood in Westeros, and Stannis takes the seat of Dragonstone. Once Lord Monford accepted that Joffrey was not Robert’s, then Stannis was the one with the most dragonlord blood. In that sense, Lord Monford studying Stannis during Mel’s burning of the Seven rather the burning effigees could be interpreted as him looking at the last of the dragonlord blood using fire and blood magic.

If Aurane remained loyal to House Velaryon and the Targaryen blood, then his bending the knee to Joffrey after captivity would seem to oppose it. I already pointed out, however, it can be seen as a parallel to Jon joining the wildlings and the King Beyond the Wall, Mance Rayder. If this parallel holds, and consider “loyalty” as motive for Aurane, and not opportunism, we realize how and when Varys recruited Aurane Waters. Varys approached and recruited Aurane as Rugen after Aurane was captured, but before he swore failty to Joffrey.

Note though that Varys did not recruit Aurane from a black cell: only Ned Stark, Pycelle, Tyrion Lannister and the three men Ned gave to Yoren to take to the Wall  – Rorge, Biter and Jaquen H’ghar – were held there.

Longwaters scratched his nose. “Rugen was here when need be, my lord. That must be said. The black cells are little used. Before your lordship’s little brother was sent down, we had Grand Maester Pycelle for a time, and before him Lord Stark the traitor. There were three others, common men, but Lord Stark gave them to the Night’s Watch. I did not think it good to free those three, but the papers were in proper order. I made note of that in a report as well, you may be certain of it.” (aFfC, Jaime II)

None of the captives of the Battle of the Blackwater were prisoners in the black cells.  But there are other high level cells in the dungeon and since there were so many captives at the Battle of the Blackwater, a great many may have been kept penned together in the field outside the city walls under the watch of Gold Cloaks, Lannister and Tyrell soldiers. The undergoaler disuigse of Rugen or any other of his could work in any of those settings for Varys to move freely amongst the captives.

And it is easy to see how Varys’ would remind Aurance that like Alyn Velaryon he could save the honor of his House and ancestry by helping the dragons return to the Iron Throne if only he chose to bend the knee to Joffrey and live, instead of choosing death.

You might argue that at this point, Varys could not be certain of Aurane’s trustworthiness to reveal Aegon’s existence to him. But Varys could at this point in time reveal that Dany had hatched dragons, was in Qarth and would sail for Pentos soon. Around the same time of Aurane’s capture, Selmy Barristan arrived in Qarth with Belwas and three cogs to take Dany and her baby dragons to Pentos and Illyrio. If Selmy had the time to sail for Qarth once Illyrio discovered Dany’s whereabouts and her having hatched dragons, then Illyrio had time to send news to Varys once the blockade on King’s Landing was lifted.

“Which plan?” said Tristan Rivers. “The fat man’s plan? The one that changes every time the moon turns? First Viserys Targaryen was to join us with fifty thousand Dothraki screamers at his back. Then the Beggar King was dead, and it was to be the sister, a pliable young child queen who was on her way to Pentos with three new-hatched dragons.” (aDwD, The Lost Lord)

It would not be the first time that Varys successfully persuaded someone into pretending to be someone or act in a manner against their honor. He convinced

  • Ned Stark into admitting to treason, into lying, for the sake of his daughter’s life and the promise he could take the black.
  • Jon Connington in going along with the lie and story that he stole from the Golden Company and drank himself to death.

Of course, while this is a possible scenario, and we do not have direct evidence that Varys had any contact with Aurane during this timeline. I admit that just because Varys could, that does not mean he would. It is a possible speculative scenario. That does not mean we have no indirect indications that would support this speculative scenario. Remember the quote about who was in the black cells? This came up during a conversation between Jaime and Renniger Longwaters. And that conversation is by itself a very interesting literary device.

Rugen and Rennifer Longwaters

Varys’ alter ego Rugen leads to another golden nugget – Rennifer Longwaters. Jaime interrogates the latter to “learn” more about Rugen. The scene and the dialogue itself seems needless filler.

  • We know who Rugen was, since the time Varys visited Ned Stark in his black cell in aGoT.
  • Jaime knows who Rugen is, because he ordered Varys to rescue Tyrion from his cell in aSoS.

Nevertheless, Jaime goes through the motions of investigating Rugen and so George introduces us to Rennifer Longwaters.

“And the missing gaoler.”
“Rugen,” the old man supplied. “An undergaoler. He had charge of the third level, the black cells.”
“Tell me of him,” Jaime had to say. A bloody farce. He knew who Rugen was, even if Longwaters did not.
“Unkempt, unshaven, coarse of speech. I misliked the man, ’tis true, I do confess it. Rugen was here when I first came, twelve years past. He held his appointment from King Aerys. The man was seldom here, it must be said. I made note of it in my reports, my lord. I most suredly did, I give you my word upon it, the word of a man with royal blood.” (aFfC, Jaime I)

Now, why would George RR Martin take the time to give us these details? I propose the important information here is not so much Rugen, but Rennifer Longwaters.

“I see you wonder, what sort of name is that?” the man had cackled when Jaime went to question him. “It is an old name, ’tis true. I am not one to boast, but there is royal blood in my veins. I am descended from a princess. My father told me the tale when I was a tad of a lad.” Longwaters had not been a tad of a lad for many a year, to judge from his spotted head and the white hairs growing from his chin. “She was the fairest treasure of the Maidenvault. Lord Oakenfist the great admiral lost his heart to her, though he was married to another. She gave their son the bastard name of ‘Waters’ in honor of his father, and he grew to be a great knight, as did his own son, who put the ‘Long’ before the ‘Waters’ so men might know that he was not basely born himself. So I have a little dragon in me.” (aFfC, Jaime II)

The Velaryon family tree, source a Wiki of Ice and Fire

Rennifer’s ancestral princess was Elaena Targaryen, daughter of Aegon III and Daenaera Velaryon, granddaughter of Vaemond Velaryon, who once challenged the potential inheritance of Driftmark during Corlys’ illness and was killed by Daemon Targaryen for it. Nevertheless, Rhaenyra’s first son with Daemon, Aegon III, wed Vaemond’s granddaughter, as the Sea Snake was her great grand uncle.

Daenaera Velaryon presented on Maiden Day’s Ball by Dough Whitley

Daenaera Velaryon and Aegon III Targaryen had five children: Daeron I Targaryen who first conquered Dorne, Baelor the Blessed, and three daughters (Daena, Rhaena and Elaena).

  • Daeron I died in Dorne before being wed or fathering any children.
  • Baelor the Blessed was wed to his sister Daena, but he never consummated it and locked all three of his sisters in the Maidenvault.
  • Rhaena was as pious as Baelor and became a septa.
  • But the other two daughters were not pious. Daena Targaryen slepth with her cousin Aegon (later known as Aegon IV the Unworthy), resulting in Daemon Blackfyre and his line.
  • Daena’s younger sister Elaena had several husbands and seven children. Two of her children were born out of wedlock, fathered by Alyn Oakenfist when he had an affair with Elaena.

By then Alyn had been Lord of the Tides for over forty years. Elaena had hoped that Alyn would marry her, but he left on his last voyage and was lost at sea. She had twins, Jon and Jeyne Waters. Jon Waters grew up to be the “famous knight”, while Jon’s trueborn son changed the name to Longwaters. So, not only was Elaena herself half Velaryon, so were her children with Alyn.

Elaena Targaryen by Magali Villeneuve

Rennifer not only connects back to Alyn Velaryon, but also to bastards of the name Waters. Just look at Jaime’s ironic response to Rennifer’s lineage reveal.

“Yes, I almost mistook you for Aegon the Conqueror,” Jaime had answered. “Waters” was a common bastard name about Blackwater Bay; old Longwaters was more like to be descended from some minor household knight than from a princess. “As it matters, though, I have more pressing concerns than your lineage.” (aFfC, Jaime I)

Jaime jokes that he almost mistook Rennifer for Aegon the Conquerer, though of course he looks nothing like a Targaryen. But another Waters does compare enough for Cersei to think of Rhaegar Targaryen.

The other cousin, Elinor, was sharing a cup of wine with the handsome young Bastard of Driftmark, Aurane Waters. It was not the first time the queen had made note of Waters, a lean young man with grey-green eyes and long silver-gold hair. The first time she had seen him, for half a heartbeat she had almost thought Rhaegar Targaryen had returned from the ashes. (aFfC, Cersei III)

Rennifer seems prone to boast about his royal drop of blood any chance he gets. Through the years, Varys as Rugen must have heard it mentioned often and repeatedly. While Jaime might not be interested in such a pedigree, it would have piqued Varys’ interest. And it would have prepared Varys into prospecting House Velaryon’s potential use, long before Aurane was captured. So, Varys knew which arguments to use to influence the bastard of Driftmark, promise him recognition and a future like that of the Oakenfist.

And George certainly wanted to plant a seed here for us of a Waters looking like a Targaryen who is a descendant of Alyn Velaryon, a legitimized bastard of Driftmark who helped return a lost Targaryen, in connection to Varys’ secret identity Rugen and a conquering Aegon. Hmmmm.

Bending the knee

Cersei mistaking Aurane Waters for Rhaegar is not just a parallel to Jaime’s sceptical remark of believing Rennifer Longwaters to be Aegon the Conquerer. It also points to the scene in which Aurane Waters was first introduced to the reader.

The first time she had seen him, for half a heartbeat she had almost thought Rhaegar Targaryen had returned from the ashes. (aFfC, Cersei III)

This first time would have been in the throne room, when Aurane was one of the captives who had to choose between bending the knee to Joffrey or die.

For now the coin was turned over, and the captives were ushered in. There were great lords and noble knights in that company too: sour old Lord Celtigar, the Red Crab; Ser Bonifer the Good; Lord Estermont, more ancient even than Celtigar; Lord Varner, who hobbled the length of the hall on a shattered knee, but would accept no help; Ser Mark Mullendore, grey-faced, his left arm gone to the elbow; fierce Red Ronnet of Griffin Roost; Ser Dermot of the Rainwood; Lord Willum and his sons Josua and Elyas; Ser Jon Fossoway; Ser Timon the Scrapesword; Aurane, the bastard of Driftmark; Lord Staedmon, called Pennylover; hundreds of others.
Those who had changed their allegiance during the battle needed only to swear fealty to Joffrey, but the ones who had fought for Stannis until the bitter end were compelled to speak. Their words decided their fate. If they begged forgiveness for their treasons and promised to serve loyally henceforth, Joffrey welcomed them back into the king’s peace and restored them to all their lands and rights. A handful remained defiant, however. “Do not imagine this is done, boy,” warned one, the bastard son of some Florent or other. “The Lord of Light protects King Stannis, now and always. All your swords and all your scheming shall not save you when his hour comes.”(aCoK, Sansa VIII)

Notice how Sansa uses the phrase “the coin was turned over“. And well, Varys did leave a golden coin in Rugen’s cell, which already implied Taena Merryweather as Varys’ agent to the reader. Aurane Waters is the other side of the same coin being hinted at via Rennifer Longwaters, and thus a second agent.

It is tempting to skip the above scene for analysis, because it mostly just appears to be nothing more than a bunch of names. And yet, the first one to defy King Joffrey should raise some interest. Sansa refers to him as “the bastard son of a Florent or some other.” This anonymous bastard serves as a stand-in for Aurane’s fate if he had chosen to defy Joffrey.

George did not just randomly choose a bastard as the first denier. Right before this man’s rejection of Joffrey, it is said that those who beg forgiveness and swear loyalty will get their lands and rights restored. Guess who has no lands and no rights? Bastards. By making a bastard defy Joffrey right after this menton of returning lands and rights, George suggests that this anonymous bastard man saw more worth in dying while defying Joffrey, than retaining his life with no chance to better it. The sole other bastard amongst the list of names is the bastard of Driftmark, Aurane. So, we certainly are left to ponder the possbility that without his half-brother and Stannis for a king, Aurane should see his hopes smashed equally, and thus how only a man like Varys could revive them.

George also includes a huge symbolic role in the scene of the captives with Lord Varner. Swearing fealty to King Joffrey comes with the expression of “bending the knee“. But Lord Varner has a shattered knee. It is unlikely that when Lord Varner had to hobble the Throne Room to swear fealty to King Joffrey, he physically bent that shattered knee. In other words, his fealty and that of those mentioned in the list of names is mere lip service, not followed true in action. Indeed, many of them were originally with Renly’s host and went over to Stannis after Renly’s death (even Ser Bonifer “the Good” Hasty) and were admonished for it by Cortnay Penrose. Lord Celtigar and Aurane Waters are the sole ones in the list who were with Stannis from the start of aCoK.

Several names in the list are tied to Jon Connington’s quick conquest of Cape Wrath:

  • Lord Estermont of the island of Estermont, who becomes a hostage of the Golden Company.
  • Red Ronnet of Griffin’s Roost, who loses his seat to Jon Connington.
  • Ser Dermot of the Rainwood is but a hedge knight, but the intended landing place was an abandoned beach at the heart of the rainwood on the northern shore, and Rain House of House Wylde is taken with ease by Laswell Peake.
  • Jon Fossoway would be a cousin to the second in command in Storm’s End, Lord Meadows who surrendered Storm’s End to Stannis after Cortnay Penrose was killed. And well, apparently Jon Connington and Aegon VI did take Storm’s End by tWoW, Arianne II.

As a young landed knight, Ser Bonifer Hasty was once in love with princess Rhaella Targaryen, and she with him. He wore her token at a tourney that he won and he declared Rhaella his queen of love and beauty. He never stood any chance to be considered a wedding partner for Rhaella however. The day she was wed to Aerys to become the Mad King’s queen, Ser Bonifer put away his lance and became pious. He founded his Holy Hundred and became the castellan of Harrenhal in aFfC. And a familiar name appears when Jaime considers who may have convinced Cersei to make Ser Bonifer the Good castellan of Harrenhal: Lord Orton Merryweather... or should we say Taena?

Jaime could not be certain who had convinced his sister that Ser Bonifer should be named castellan of Harrenhal, but the appointment smelled of Orton Merryweather. Hasty had once served Merryweather’s grandsire, he seemed to recall dimly. And the carrot-haired justiciar was just the sort of simpleminded fool to assume that someone called “the Good” was the very potion the riverlands required to heal the wounds left by Roose Bolton, Vargo Hoat, and Gregor Clegane. (aFfC, Jaime III)

There is a link between Ser Bonifer and the once exiled Hand, Lord Owen Merryweather.

It should also be mentioned that Ser Duncan the Tall noticed a pavillion of purple-white stripes with the occupants making sounds of lovemaking during the wedding tourney of Whitewalls in The Mystery Knight. These are the sigil colors and pattern (white bend on a purple field) of House Hasty. The tourney is referred to as the Second Blackfyre Rebellion and was in actuality a plot to crown Daemon II Blackfyre, third son of Daemon Blackfyre. Though of course those making love in the Hasty pavillion would not have been Bonifer and Rhaella, since neither were born yet at the time, it does tie a Hasty who had a love affair with backing a Blackfyre. Regardless on whether you believe Aegon VI to be a Blackfyre or not, the Golden Company remains associated to Blackfyres.

Now, I do not believe that Bonifer the Good was ever recruited by Varys, or even that he bent the knee to Joffrey with betrayal in mind. Bonifer and the remainder of his Holy Hundred possibly even surrendered voluntarily during the Battle of the Blackwater, after fourteen were killed. But given his background story, he would nevertheless be a sure bet to surrender Harrenhal voluntarily without a fight to Aegon VI, whom he would regard the grandson of his beloved Rhaella.

You see though how most of the names of the list or their castles end up embroiled in the invasion of the Golden Company. I think we should include Lord Celtigar with that, but I will cover him in Part 2 for Salladhor Saan. Mark Mullendore ends up the victim of Cersei’s plot, while House Mullendore may fall victim to Euron Greyjoy’s raids, as its overlords are the Hightowers of Oldtown. By neglecting and downplaying the issue of the Ironborn in the Reach, Cersei sowed the seeds for a potential rebellion against King Tommen in Oldtown and other houses along the Honeywine. It does not end there however, in a symbolic sense Mark Mullendore represents the “broken arm” or lost arm of Dorne.

The last three remaining names, like Lord Varner serve an almost pure symbolical role. Lord Willum and his sons Josua and Elyas? They are a tribute to Tad Williams’ Memory, Sorrow and Thorne fantasy series of the late 80s and early 90s amidst this list of men in particular. Willum is a reference to the author Williams, and the names of Willum’s sons Elyas and Josua refer to two brothers (Elias and Josua) ending up as rivals for the throne, which is made of dragon bones of the dragon their father allegedly killed.

In Catelyn’s chapter where she is an envoy for Robb at Renly’s camp, Elyas and Josua have a dispute over who manages to climb first over the walls of King’s Landing. Hence Elyas and Josua symbolize the feud between Renly and Stannis over a throne that their brother was awarded for killing a dragon, Rhaegar Targaryen. More, the Baratheon dynasty was built on the deaths of the Targaryen dragon dynasty. Even if the Lords had every right to rebel against the Mad King, the murder of Rhaegar’s children and Robert rewarding those behind that slaughter left a stain on his rule.

Spoiler warning! In William’s story the dragonbone chair throne was built on a lie, and the true dynastic heir is an orphaned boy who grows up in the castle as the kitchen’s help. So, when we see Lord Willum and his two sons appear amongst this particular list of names, it points to the other houses ending up kneeling to Aegon VI, the alleged unknown survivor of a dead dynasty.

Much of Willam’s story revolves around a prophecy about bringing together three magical swords. And aside from a dragon skeleton, House Willum’s sigil (in a semi-canon source) depicts three swords. In George’s series we have the legendary Lightbringer in combination with the Prince that was Promised. False or not, Rhaegar did name Aegon the Prince that was Promised and commented that the dragon has three heads. Add the Targaryen swords Blackfyre and Dark Sister and we see how Aegon VI becomes part of the sigil. Even if it is a lie, this reference to William’s series still works out (as anyone who has ever read it would agree with me).

That leaves me to tackle Timon Scrapesword and Lord Pennylover Staedmon. These two men were never mentioned before or after. So, who they are is less important than their names as clues all by themselves.

  • Scraping means removing the surface to reveal what is beneath the outer layer or to smoothen a rough outside. In that sense a scrapesword implies a sword in the making underneath a rough appearance. To scrape also means to collect. In that sense a scrapesword becomes a worplay on the concept of a sellsword, where a man is a collected or scraped sword believing in a cause in contrast of an actual sellsword. This interpretation is supported by the name Timon. The Greek Timao means to honour or esteem. A scrapesword therefore switches sides for honorable reasons, not for money.
  • Staedmon is a wordplay on a steady or steadfast man. Meanwhile a penny is a coin.
    • The first interpretation of Pennylover would be someone who loves coin. Combined with Staedmon this makes for a steadfast coin lover. Interestingly enough, a penny is not made from gold, but copper. It would make for a rather modest sellsword.
    • The concept of gold and sellswords combines into the Golden Company and their original cause, namely to install a Blackfyre on the Iron Throne. In contrast, a copper pennylover would hint at wanting to install a red or true dragon. But Penny is also a personal or house name: the dwarf Penny, a historical whore Penny, the House Penny. With Corliss Penny we have a namesake of Corlys Velaryon combined with a penny. Meanwhile one of the lovers of camp follower Penny Jenny was Quentyn Ball, a Blackfyre supporter.

Eech in their own way, Timon Scrapesword and Staedmon Pennylover represent the idea of someone who appears a selfish rogue or sell-out, like the Golden Company seems a sellsword company for money. But when you scrape away the golden surface, you will find the bitter steel and contracts writ in blood, a cause to be loyal to a dragon, red or black. It is possible that Timon Scrapesword is meant as a clue to Jon Fossoway of the Green Apples, in particular, whereas Steadman Pennylover is a clue for Aurane. But as both imply the same concept, with the first leaning more on honor whereas the second does not mind personal material gain while he is committed to a deeper loyalty of blood.

So, when we combine Cersei’s aFfC reference to first seeing Aurane and mistaking him for Rhaegar in the throne room where he “bent the knee” to Joffrey, we come across

  • coin references, that point to Taena Merryweather and via Longwaters to a Waters descended from Alyn Oakenfist
  • bastards lacking the motivation to “bend the knee” to Joffrey because bastards have no lands and noble rights
  • an allusion to those swearing fealty not actually bending the knee.
  • allusions to gold and pennyloving scrapeswords
  • loyalty to an heir of a prior Targaryen dynasty

This supports the idea that after capture Aurane contemplated refusing to go over to Joffrey, like the other anonymous bastard, but was convinced by Varys to choose life for a higher cause: the return of a “true” dragon. All Varys needed to do then was mention the rich Valyrian history of House Velaryon all on its own, the loyalty of that house to the Targaryens and its true heirs, how even bastards ended up as Lords of the Tides, yadiyada …

The Impulse of Cersei’s Admiration

Taena Merryweather was obvously set to work during Tyrion’s trial to become noticed by the Lannisters as a trustworthy courtier. She lies that she witnessed Tyrion drop something in Joffrey’s wine while the king and Margaery cut the pie. Tyrion even wonders whether she was bought. Later on, during Tywin’s funeral, she approaches Cersei directly, assuring her that she and her husband will happily serve Cersei. And then during the wedding celebrations of Tommen and Margaery, Taena gives up Senelle, and sometime later she drops the info-bomb about Olenna Tyrell’s chest of Gardener gold. So, we have ample evidence on Taena making an effort to gain Cersei’s trust.

In contrast, Aurane never seemed to have made any such effort. He seems to either remain in the background or avoided courtlife as much as possible when Tywin was still alive. He does not appear in an of Sansa’s or Tyrion’s POVs during aSoS, nor is he mentioned by anyone, until aFfC, Cersei III, when she notices him at the wedding celebration of Tommen and Margaery, as he talks with Elinor Tyrell. Next, Jaime mentions having heard a rumor that Cersei intends to make him her Admiral in Jaime II. And we meet him in person during the Small Council in Cersei IV. And unlike with Rosby or Ser Harys Swift, Cersei never betrays in her POV directly what her rationale was. Worse, everything indicates that Cersei’s decision over this was an impulsive one. And this would seem to be a counterargument against Aurane Waters being an agent planted by Varys. It is certainly one of the main reason why Aurane remains under the radar as possible ally of Varys to both characters in-world as well as to readers.

I will show that the indicators back up the impression that Cersei made Aurane Admiral on impulse, and will even propose the likeliest scenario how it came about. But Cersei’s impulse itself was not some fluke: her weakness for Valyrian looks reminiscint of Rhaegar was known to Varys and this was used at the right time in the right way.

RATional VERSUS IMPULSIVE

First, let me show what an actual rationalized choice looks like from Cersei’s POV. On the night of the discovery of Tywin’s death, Cersei decides on impulse to make Jaime Hand. But he rebuffs her in front of everyone else – Qyburn, Kevan, the Kettlebacks. When her mind shifts from Jaime to Kevan, we get her thought process on it.

The next Hand will know his place, she promised herself. It would have to be Ser Kevan. Her uncle was tireless, prudent, unfailingly obedient. She could rely on him, as her father had. The hand does not argue with the head. She had a realm to rule, but she would need new men to help her rule it. Pycelle was a doddering lickspittle, Jaime had lost his courage with his sword hand, and Mace Tyrell and his cronies Redwyne and Rowan could not be trusted. (aFfC, Cersei I)

But Kevan refuses to be Hand with Cersei as regent. Later, Cersei spitballs the notion of making Lord Orton Merryweather Hand, or the pyromancer Lord Hallyne. But eventually she picks Lord Harys Swyft: to be her hostage to prevent Kevan from acting against her (after he let slip to both her and Jaime that he knows of their incest and that Tommen is their child).

Ser Harys had been thrilled by his appointment, too dim to realize that he was more hostage than Hand. His daughter was her uncle’s wife, and Kevan loved his chinless lady, flat-chested and chicken-legged as she was. So long as she had Ser Harys in hand, Kevan Lannister must needs think twice about opposing her. To be sure, a good-father is not the ideal hostage, but better a flimsy shield than none. (aFfC, Cersei IV)

This contrasts with the happenstance manner in which Lord Rosby ends up being Master of Coin. After Twyin’s burial ceremony, Mace Tyrell approaches Cersei and mentions that Garth Tyrell is on his way to Oldtown to sail for King’s Landing, accepting Tywin’s offer to make Garth the new Master of Coin. Cersei had no knowledge of this, nor does she want a Tyrell on her council. She blurts and lies on the spot that she asked Lord Rosby to be the Master of Coin and that he has accepted. Lord Gyles Rosby was the first name that came to mind, likely because she had noticed him coughing during the ceremony (and was irritated by it). After having lied about it to Mace Tyrell, she now felt forced to actually make Lord Rosby Master of Coin. So, she invited Lord Gyles Rosby to a ride in her litter after the funeral to offer him the position and presses him that if anyone asked he should claim that he joined the council a day earlier. When Kevan Lannister confronts her over her choice of Lord Rosby, later on, she defensively comes up with a litany of superficial arguments on the spot to make it appear as if she pondered it. And yet those were never her true reasons and are quite absurd: he has a wealthy estate, so he must know how to count and make money.

Cersei’s defense to Jaime over her rumored choice of Aurane Waters is similarly superficial.

[…] Cersei tossed her hair back, and said, “Waters is well suited to the office. He has spent half his life on ships.”
“Half his life? He cannot be more than twenty.”
“Two-and-twenty, and what of it? Father was not even one-and-twenty when Aerys Targaryen named him Hand. It is past time Tommen had some young men about him in place of all these wrinkled greybeards. Aurane is strong and vigorous.”
Strong and vigorous and handsome, Jaime thought. . . . she’s been fucking Lancel and Osmund Kettleblack and Moon Boy for all I know . . . “Paxter Redwyne would be a better choice. He commands the largest fleet in Westeros. Aurane Waters could command a skiff, but only if you bought him one.”
“You are a child, Jaime. Redwyne is Tyrell’s bannerman, and nephew to that hideous grandmother of his. I want none of Lord Tyrell’s creatures on my council.” (aFfC, Jaime II)

Her defense on Aurane as a choice compares to her defense of picking Gyles Rosby for “lord treasurer”, or Orton Merryweather as Hand – superficial uninformed non-reasons. It has the hallmark of impulse, rather than calculated strategy. All she knows of him are his looks, his age and that he is a sailor. Sure, her argument for not wanting any of Mace Tyrell’s family or bannermen on her council is in a certain light a valid reason for why she would not pick Paxter Redwyne, but it certainly fails to be a reason why it should be Aurane instead. Moreover, we saw Cersei use that very same reason when she impulsively picked Rosby in order to refuse Garth Tyrell. And since her discussion with Jaime on the various other men for the different jobs all involve irrational, impulsive choices, her impulsive choice of Aurane fits the pattern and dialogue.

A TEEN CRUSH

Jaime suspects that Cersei picked Aurane purely for his looks and that she is sexually attracted to him. Jaime is not wrong about that suspicion.

Seen up close, his hair was more silvery than gold, and his eyes were grey-green where Prince Rhaegar’s had been purple. Even so, the resemblance . . . She wondered if Waters would shave his beard for her. Though he was ten years her junior, he wanted her; Cersei could see it in the way he looked at her. (aFfC, Cersei IV)

Cersei has the thoughts of a mesmerized young woman in heat here. And her thoughts when she sees him in Cersei III, during the wedding feast, is little different.

The other cousin, Elinor, was sharing a cup of wine with the handsome young Bastard of Driftmark, Aurane Waters. It was not the first time the queen had made note of Waters, a lean young man with grey-green eyes and long silver-gold hair. The first time she had seen him, for half a heartbeat she had almost thought Rhaegar Targaryen had returned from the ashes. It is his hair, she told herself. He is not half as comely as Rhaegar was. His face is too narrow, and he has that cleft in his chin. The Velaryons came from old Valyrian stock, however, and some had the same silvery hair as the dragonkings of old.  (aFfC, Cersei III)

Thrice she thinks of his handsomeness, his youth, his vigour, and she projects desire onto him (for her). She picked him, because she desires him, and she desires him, because he reminds her of Rhaegar Targaryen, despite the different details such as eye-color, shade of silver, chin cleft and beard.

Strangely enough, her thoughts also betray that this is truly the first time that she is close enough to Aurane to study his features better. This implies that unlike Cersei asking Rosby to accept her offer to be part of her small council, she did not even ask Aurane personally, let alone privately.

These quotes aslo reveal how little Cersei knows Aurane. During the wedding celebration, she acknowledges this is not the first time she noticed him, and then immediately thinks of the first time she saw him, which would have been the time he bent the knee to Joffrey in aCoK, Sansa VIII. While the reader can assume she has seen him at court after aCoK, she does not reminisce on those moments, nor is there direct textual evidence of that. We just know that this is another time that she pays attention to him, from afar. We can, however, conclude from her thoughts in Cersei IV, the Small Council is actually the first time she interacts with him, because it is only now that she has the opportunity to study him “up close”.

In other words, Cersei noticed and watched Aurane like a 14-year old freshman teen smitten with a junior or senior, whom she admires from afar. Basically, Cersei has a crush on Aurane, and it has little to do with Aurane himself. It all has to do with her limerance for Rhaegar in her youth.

The fact that Cersei only getes to study Aurane up close for the first time at the Small Council, after she already appointed him Admiral, implies that the manner in which she appointed him and he accepted was via a third party. She may have invited Rosby into her private carriage to ask him to be her treasurer, but she did not go about it in this manner with Aurane. While this seems strange – and it certainly is not common Cersei behaivor – it certainly fits the scenario behavior of having a crush.

Taena’s RUMOR MILL

There is another paradox with the scene when Cersei notices Aurane at the wedding feast. Cersei saw Aurane share wine with Margaery’s cousin Elinor Tyrell – the pretty, willowy and flowered flirt, despite being betrothed.

Elinor Tyrell, by Drazenka Kimpel

Shortly before Cersei notices Aurane sharing his wine with Elinor Tyrell, Taena Merryweather had informed Cersei about her handmaid Senelle meeting with Margaery’s cousins, inluding Elinor, allegedly to pass information about Cersei onto Margaery. 

“Senelle?” Sudden fury twisted in the queen’s belly. Was there no one she could trust? “You are certain of this?”
“Have her followed. Margaery never meets with her directly. Her cousins are her ravens, they bring her messages. Sometimes Elinor, sometimes Alla, sometimes Megga. All of them are as close to Margaery as sisters. They meet in the sept and pretend to pray. Put your own man in the gallery on the morrow, and he will see Senelle whispering to Megga beneath the altar of the Maiden.” (aFfC, Cersei III)

Kevan’s social interaction with Garlan Tyrell during Tommen’s wedding – where everyone is expected to be amical with one another – triggers Cersei’s paranoia.

Her uncle’s place was empty. The queen finally found him in a corner, talking intently with Mace Tyrell’s son Garlan. What do they have to talk about? The Reach might call Ser Garlan gallant, but she trusted him no more than Margaery or Loras. She had not forgotten the gold coin that Qyburn had discovered beneath the gaoler’s chamber pot. A golden hand from Highgarden. And Margaery is spying on me. (aFfC, Cersei III)

Cersei thinks ill of any of the men interacting with Margaery and her cousins, except Aurane. She is paranoid of her own kin talking with a Tyrell. But she never is over Aurane, despite seeing him talk with the flirty Elinor. In fact, in the small council chapter she considers everyone present as completely on her side.

My councillors. Cersei had uprooted every rose, and all those beholden to her uncle and her brothers. In their places were men whose loyalty would be to her. She had even given them new styles, borrowed from the Free Cities; the queen would have no “masters” at court beside herself. Orton Merryweather was her justiciar, Gyles Rosby her lord treasurer. Aurane Waters, the dashing young Bastard of Driftmark, would be her grand admiral. (aFfC, Cersei IV)

While Cersei’s crush on Aurane might help her want to believe he’ll only be loyal to her, despite seeing him drink a cup of wine with a pretty flirt of the “enemy” at a feast, it is unlikely she would believe this without someone else reassuring her that Aurane is not one of those hanging out with Margaery and her cousins. And this must have occurred, before Jaime overheard the rumor that Cersei picked Aurane to be her Master of Ships – between Cersei III and Jaime II .

“There is talk that you mean to make Aurane Waters the master of ships.”
“Has someone been informing on me?” When he did not answer, Cersei tossed her hair back, and said, “Waters is well suited to the office. He has spent half his life on ships.” (aFfC, Jaime II)

The fact that Cersei asks Jaime who has been gossiping confirms Cersei did mention it to someone. Tyrion told three different men three different versions of who he wanted princess Myrcella to betrothe to discover who of those three would betray his confidence to Cersei. When Cersei protested against Dorne, he knew Pycelle had been the blabbermouth and had him locked up in the black cells. The rumor about Aurane is not a ploy bt Cersei to unmask an informant. Nevertheless, she distrusts Jaime after this even more.

So, who reassured Cersei about Aurane’s loyalty? Who spread the rumor? And who was the go between to ask or inform Aurane of his promotion to become Admiral?

The most logical person would have been Taena Merryweather. Sometime soon after the wedding feast, Cersei asked Margaery whether Taena could be her companion, and Margaery was happy to oblige. By the time that Jaime confronts Cersei about her choices of friends and small council appointments, including Aurane, Cersei and Taena have become thick as thieves. She truly considered making Orton Merryweather her Hand to please Taena and bind her to her.

“Robert gave [their lands] back. Some, at least. Taena would be pleased if Orton could recover the rest.”
“Is this about pleasing some Myrish whore? Here I thought it was about governing the realm.” (aFfC, Jaime II)

When Cersei defends Taena to Jaime, she points out Taena’s usefulness as a double spy. Taena feeds Margaery false and sometimes true information and in return Taena tells Cersei about Margaery and other interesting revelations about the Tyrells.

“Margaery is not half so clever as she thinks. She has no notion what a sweet serpent she has in that Myrish slut. I use Taena to feed the little queen what I want her to know. Some of it is even true.” Cersei’s eyes were bright with mischief. “And Taena tells me everything Maid Margaery is doing.” […] “I know she is a mother, with a young son that she wants to rise high in this world. She will do whatever is required to see that he does. Mothers are all the same. Lady Merryweather may be a serpent, but she is far from stupid. She knows I can do more for her than Margaery, so she makes herself useful to me. You would be surprised at all the interesting things she’s told me.” (aFfC, Jaime II)

If Taena informed Margaery about Cersei picking Aurane, then this explains why it became gossip and Jaime learned of it. And it explains why Cersei does not press who informed on her to Jaime. Cersei knows perfectly well she told Taena and that it was Taena who slipped it to Margaery, which is why she comes to distrust Jaime even more and sends him away to deal with the siege of Riverrun.

Given that Cersei has a crush on Aurane, I propose the following scenario. Cersei inquired with Taena Merryweather as innocent as she could whether Aurane was a regular visitor to Margaery or her cousins. Taena assured her that Aurane was not a courtier to either Margaery or Elinor. When Taena asked “Why?” (likely in a teasing confidential tone), Cersei improvized an alternative motive for her inquisitiveness: she was considering to make him master of ships on her council. Taena made sure it became a rumor. When Jaime asked Cersei about it, not only did it reveal to her the rumor mill, but she would conclude that the gossip would have reached Aurane’s ears too, undoubtedly creating a binding expectation. Jaime’s disapproval  strengthened Cersei’s pride and resolve to make Aurane Waters her admiral indeed.

This is how we end up with a situation that reeks of impsulsiveness, based on a crush, and installing that said crush at her small council without having spoken or met the man in question up close before.

Luck or set-up?

So, was it a stroke of luck for Varys that Aurane became Admiral, almost entirely dependent on Cersei’s impulsiveness and desires. Or was Cersei set up to believe it was all her own idea and desires?

Well, what would have prompted Cersei to inquire after Aurane with Taena Merryweather in the first place? He shared wine with flirty Elinor at the feast, after Taena already had thrown suspicion on Margaery and her hens for spying on Cersei. And he has Targaryen feaetures, reminding Cersei of Rhaegar. And if indeed Taena started the rumor mill about Cersei considering to make Aurane her admiral, then she manipulated Cersei into the decision, while making Cersei believe it was all her own happenstance doing and make Aurane the least suspect.

Cersei may be impulsive, but to a man like Varys she is also predictable and Taena is skilled and inventive enough to seize or create any opportunity to make it happen. Aurane’s Valyrian features that he has in common with Rhaegar was always part of the lure. If there was ever anyone that Cersei was smitten with, aside from Jaime, it was Rhaegar.

Rhaegar Targaryen by Karla Ortiz

She was ten when she finally saw her prince in the flesh, at the tourney her lord father had thrown to welcome King Aerys to the west. […] Seventeen and new to knighthood, Rhaegar Targaryen had worn black plate over golden ringmail when he cantered onto the lists. Long streamers of red and gold and orange silk had floated behind his helm, like flames. […] By night the prince played his silver harp and made her weep. When she had been presented to him, Cersei had almost drowned in the depths of his sad purple eyes. He has been wounded, she recalled thinking, but I will mend his hurt when we are wed. Next to Rhaegar, even her beautiful Jaime had seemed no more than a callow boy. (aFfC, Cersei V)

Even in Cersei’s memory, beautiful Jaime was but a callow boy. She drowned in Rhaegar’s eyes and his harp play could make her weep. She wept at the end of the tourney at Lannisport when there was no final feast to celebrate her fantasy betrothal to Rhaegar. At the time, Cersei was ten and Varys was still in Essos. But Tywin did not give up on hoping for a royal match. He brought Cersei (born in 266 AC) to court when she was twelve, refusing any other marriage offer. So, Cersei began to live in the Red Keep in 278 AC, the same year that Aerys II hired Varys, a year before Rhaegar’s  betrothal to Elia Martell. Varys was not just privy to Tywin’s intentions. He witnessed young Cersei being smitten with Rhaegar, while both Cersei and Rhaegar lived at the Red Keep.

Many a night she had watched Prince Rhaegar in the hall, playing his silver-stringed harp with those long, elegant fingers of his. Had any man ever been so beautiful? He was more than a man, though. His blood was the blood of old Valyria, the blood of dragons and gods. (aFfC, Cersei V)

Cersei never forgave Robert for killing handsome Rhaegar, making clear how much Cersei desired Rhaegar. Varys was present throughout to take note of it. So, even though Cersei’s thinking and decision making was impulsive and utterly based on Aurane’s looks from afar, none should be taken as coincidental.

Conclusion (tl;tr)

I propose that Varys recruited Aurane for team Aegon, shortly after Aurane’s capture at the Battle of the Blackwater, because he knew which ancestral pride and loyalty buttons to push by reminding him of Alyn Oakenfist, a loyal bastard of Driftmark, while Varys told Aurane a tale of a Targaryen princess with three dragons in Qarth believed to be on her way to Pentos. After that it was a waiting game. With Tywin dead and Kevan refusing to be Hand with Cersei as regent, it was the opportune time to have Cersei notice handsome, dashing Aurane, again. With Taena’s help, Cersei was reassured Aurane was not connected to the Tyrell court, her uncle or her brother, and Cersei appointed Aurane as admiral. By then, Varys trusted Aurane enough to enlighten him about the Golden Company’s expected coming. Plans were afoot to send both Tyrion and Aegon to Volantis, where Illyrio and everyone else expected Dany to show up with her dragons. And so, the Golden Company had begun its march to Volantis. It was time for Aurane to prepare Westeros for their homecoming.

Mirror Mirror: Swords, Foxes and Beauty

(Top illustration: Warrior’s Sons escort, by Joshua Cairos)

Their armor was silver plate polished to a mirror sheen, but underneath, she knew, every man of them wore a hair shirt. (aDwD, Cersei II)

Next up are the Swords, the sworn shields of the Faith, also known as the Warrior’s Sons. This analysis will delve into the description of the Warrior’s Sons, and their attributes such as the crystal crests will uncannily remind us of the Others. This should be no surprise, as they are the soldiers of the High Sparrow, who evolves into Cersei’s enemy. Since Cersei is highly associated with “wild” fire symbolism, her enemy ought to have ice symbolism. George regularly creates these mini ice versus fire dynamics to hint at opposing sides. The essay the Plutonian Others discusses a few examples where the dyanmics feature red versus blue blood: Dany versus the Undying, Roose Bolton versus Ramsay Snow. Since the Warrior’s Sons are not just a parallel to the Others via mirror-armor alone, their appearance and how they are used may give us some clues about the Others.

With Areo Hotah we investigated the veracity of reveals in the chapter where George pointed out that Hotah wears mirror-armor (see Mirror Mirror – Behind the Mirror), but pretty much ignored his Captain of the Guards chapter of aFfC, though of course his copper disk armor would be as reflective there as well. George only tips the reader off about the Warrior’s Sons wearing mirror armor in Cersei’s last chapter of aDwD, shortly before she starts her Walk of Atonement. In this essay we will not do an in-depth analysis of that chapter as we did for the Watcher, but instead use George’s tip retroactively, and thus delve into Cersei’s arc as it relates to her growing enmity with the Faith, in particularly how she ends up being tricked. Blue-Eyed Wolf already mentioned how George works in the medieval story Of Reynaert the Fox in her essay on Shadrich, Morgarth and Byron for the Valed Ragtag Band. The tricks of the fox reappear in Cersei’s arc as she deals with the High Sparrow, Septon Reynard escorted by the Warrior’s Sons and Lancel. And on an aside it is also worked into Tywin Lannister’s backstory of the Reyne-Tarbeck rebellion. To trick a lion it is only apt for George to insert references to Reynaert the Fox, but when this also involves Warrior’s Sons we end up with an extra layered allusion to the Crystal Foxes, or a nod to Tad Williams’s White Foxes (the Norns) of his Memory, Sorrow and Thorn trilogy as well as the Dan’lai of the Stone City.

Cersei’s arc on page ends with her Walk of Shame, surrounded by an escort of Warrior’s Sons in their mirror-armor, or rather she walks through the city surrounded by truth telling mirrors where she not only has to face herself but the whole city sees her truly – an empress without clothes.

Index

The Swords

The Warrior’s Sons were an order of knights who gave up lands and gold and swore their swords to the High Septon. Those during Aegon’s Conquest wore rainbow cloaks, inlaid silver armor over hair shirts, had star-shaped crystals in the pommels of their longswords. Hence they were called the Swords, while the armed sparrows with a bad of a red and white seven-pointed star were dubbed the Stars.

“They date from before Aegon’s Conquest,” Cersei explained to [Lady Merryweather]. “The Warrior’s Sons were an order of knights who gave up their lands and gold and swore their swords to His High Holiness. The Poor Fellows . . . they were humbler, though far more numerous. Begging brothers of a sort, though they carried axes instead of bowls. They wandered the roads, escorting travelers from sept to sept and town to town. Their badge was the seven-pointed star, red on white, so the smallfolk named them Stars. The Warrior’s Sons wore rainbow cloaks and inlaid silver armor over hair shirts, and bore star-shaped crystals in the pommels of their longswords. They were the Swords. Holy men, ascetics, fanatics, sorcerers, dragonslayers, demonhunters . . . there were many tales about them. But all agree that they were implacable in their hatred for all enemies of the Holy Faith.” (aFfC, Cersei VI)

When the High Sparrow became the newly elected High Septon and King’s Landing was flooded by sparrows, Cersei agreed to allow the Faith to arm itself once more, so she could get rid of the sparrows in the city. In return the High Sparrow would bless King Tommen and forgive the Crown’s debt to the Faith.

When the High Sparrow begins to preach against the brothels in King’s Landing, Cersei sends for him to inform him that brothels are a valued source of income for the crown. Instead of going himself, he sends Septon Raynard with a delegation of the Swords to court.

The delegation from the Faith was headed by her old friend Septon Raynard. Six of the Warrior’s Sons escorted him across the city; together they were seven, a holy and propitious number. The new High Septon—or High Sparrow, as Moon Boy had dubbed him—did everything by sevens. The knights wore swordbelts striped in the seven colors of the Faith. Crystals adorned the pommels of their longswords and the crests of their greathelms. They carried kite shields of a style not common since the Conquest, displaying a device not seen in the Seven Kingdoms for centuries: a rainbow sword shining bright upon a field of darkness. (aFfC, Cersei VIII)

Cersei focuses on the number seven here, but Septon Raynard is not a Warrior’s Son, not a Sword. The number of significance here is six. This is the same number of Others that surrounded Waymar Royce in the prologue.

They emerged silently from the shadows, twins to the first. Three of them … four … five … Ser Waymar may have felt the cold that came with them, but he never saw them, never heard them. (aGoT, Prologue)

The first Other confronting Ser Waymar and the five extra make six in total. Watch out for that number, because the configuration of six mirror-armored guards surrounding another reappears several times. There is an inherent ambiguity and changeability in the relation between those six and the character they surround. In aGoT’s Prologue for example, the six Others start out as Ser Waymar’s mortal enemy, but towards the end of the Prologue Ser Waymar has become a wight and turned into a mortal tool by the Others.

Another striking example is the scene where Barristan Selmy has six Brazen Locusts with him to arrest Hizdahr.

Twelve levels down he found the Shavepate waiting, his coarse features still hidden by the mask he had worn that morning, the blood bat. Six Brazen Beasts were with him. All were masked as insects, identical to one another. Locusts, Selmy realized. “Groleo,” he said.
“Groleo,” one of the locusts replied.
“I have more locusts if you need them,” said Skahaz.
“Six should serve. What of the men on the doors?” (aDwD, The Kingbreaker)

Dany’s alchemistic brass arc commences with a brass platter used as a mirror that reveals Selmy as her ally. But the poisoning of the locusts and Dany’s disappearance in aDwD puts Selmy in a very ambiguous position. Superficial evidence points to Hizdahr as the culprit, but Shakaz – the master of the Brazen Beasts – cannot be excluded from being the culprit either (see Who Poisoned the Locusts on the Meereenese Blot). And thus Selmy may regard those six Brazen Locusts as his and Dany’s allies, but may have been cleverly turned by Shakaz to undo all the compromises that Dany made to ensure peace. While brass may be used as a material to mirror and reveal truth, when the material is twisted into beastly masks, the brass is as obscure as any other non-mirroring material.

So, the number six is an important “turning” numeral in the books, and of course we all know six-six-six is the number of the beast. And it begs the question whether Cersei can still consider Septon Reynard her old friend or whether he has been “turned”. We will examine the evidence in a bit, but first let us focus on the appearance of the Warrior’s Sons.

Initially, we merely get a historical, verbal description of Cersei to Lady Merrywheather how they appeared before Maegor’s laws and wars ended their existence. They wore rainbow cloaks, silver armor over hair shirts, and both their helms and pommels are adorned with crystal. By the second description, they have materialized as an escort of six. While we get crystal crests on the helms and pommels, we do not have rainbow cloaks in that scene. Instead we are informed their sword scabbard is rainbow-colored and so is the sword depiction shining bright upon a dark kite field. It are these depictions of swords the Warrior’s Sons got their nickname from – the Swords. George does not yet use the word rainbow-colored in the description of their first appearance, but instead mentions the “colors of the seven” and “rainbow sword”. From their first appearance, however, we can derive that both the scabbard and the sword depiction on the shield imply “our swords are rainbow-colored“. The term for this effect is irridescent. This is what we call any material – whether it are soap bubbles, crystal, pearls, shells or ice – that structurally can break the light into its different color wavelengths and produce a rainbow-color effect rippling across its surface. And an irridescent sword shining on a dark field sounds very close to a sword shining in the darkness – a lightbringer. Except these lightbringers are not made of steel set on flame like a torch, they are hinted to be crystal swords. George confirms this in the final description when the Warrior’s Sons await Cersei to escort her during her Walk of Shame.

In the Hall of Lamps, a dozen Warrior’s Sons awaited her coming. Rainbow cloaks hung down their backs, and the crystals that crested their greathelms glittered in the lamplight. Their armor was silver plate polished to a mirror sheen, but underneath, she knew, every man of them wore a hair shirt. Their kite shields all bore the same device: a crystal sword shining in the darkness, the ancient badge of those the smallfolk called Swords. (aDwD, Cersei II)

Several swords in the books are described to shine with light in the darkness. There is the Dayne sword Dawn, but also Jaime’s weirwood dream sword given to him by dream-Tywin.

“And now it begins,” said Ser Arthur Dayne, the Sword of the Morning. He unsheathed Dawn and held it with both hands. The blade was pale as milkglass, alive with light. (aGoT, Eddard X)

Jaime groped under the water until his hand closed upon the hilt. Nothing can hurt me so long as I have a sword. As he raised the sword a finger of pale flame flickered at the point and crept up along the edge, stopping a hand’s breath from the hilt. The fire took on the color of the steel itself so it burned with a silvery-blue light, and the gloom pulled back. […] In the cool silvery-blue light of the swords, the big wench looked pale and fierce. […] Their blades made a little island of light, but all around them stretched a sea of darkness, unending. (aSoS, Jaime VI)

Dawn and Jaime’s dream swords are far closer to the “lightbringers” that Others carry with them.

In its hand was a longsword like none that Will had ever seen. No human metal had gone into the forging of that blade. It was alive with moonlight, translucent, a shard of crystal so thin that it seemed almost to vanish when seen edge-on. There was a faint blue shimmer to the thing, a ghost-light that played around its edges, and somehow Will knew it was sharper than any razor. (aGoT, Prologue)

A rainbow-colored crystal sword of the Warrior’s Sons bringing light in the darkness is eerily close to the crystal swords that the Others use. We tend to focus of course on the blue ghost-light, but the moonlight hitting a crystal-translucent shard makes for an irridescent effect within the crystal, regardless of the extra surrounding ghost light. And yes, this is a very different type of lightbringer than the Red Sword of Heroes Mel or the Jade Compendium talks about. Hmmm, it turns out the “ice blue versus the hot red blood” theme even creeps up in the light swords bring. As mentioned in the introduction, George’s choice of steeping the Warrior’s Sons with parallels to the Others fits their role as men who oppose wildfire-Cersei and thus also Stannis drawing a flaming sword out of a pire of burning Seven.

The king plunged into the fire with his teeth clenched, holding the leather cloak before him to keep off the flames. He went straight to the Mother, grasped the sword with his gloved hand, and wrenched it free of the burning wood with a single hard jerk. […] The gods in the pyre were scarcely recognizable anymore. The head fell off the Smith with a puff of ash and embers. […] By the time the song was done, only charwood remained of the gods, and the king’s patience had run its course. He took the queen by the elbow and escorted her back into Dragonstone, leaving Lightbringer where it stood. The red woman remained a moment to watch as Devan knelt with Byren Farring and rolled up the burnt and blackened sword in the king’s leather cloak. The Red Sword of Heroes looks a proper mess, thought Davos. (aCoK, Davos I)

Anyhow, the Warrior’s Sons carry around symbols of crystal lightbringing swords. And at least Cersei’s escort is noted to have rainbow cloaks. Combine this with their armor being silver like moonlight, and you basically have a symbolic representation of icy crystal irridescent armor.

But beneath all that armor, the Swords wear a hairshirt. This is a real world undercloth worn foremostly by Christian followers as a way to do penance, though in Biblical times Jewish mourners would wear it as well (but not to self-harm). Skin imprint patterns and clothing representations in art indicate usage of hairshirts even at Catalhoyuk (a city; 7500 BC-5000BC) and Gobekli Tepe (religious constructions; 10th millenium BC). Both these Turkish cites predate written history and agriculture. The undergarment is made of coarse animal hair worn in direct contact with the skin. The friction against skin causes irritation and makes the skin raw, hence its serves as doing penance for sins like fasting does. On Planetos men of the Faith and the Bearded Priests of Norvos wear these, and thus George uses them in the same context as real world Christian followers did (and still do).

Aside from penance, the repeated mention of the Otherlike Warrior’s Sons in particular wearing hairshirts likely has a symbolic layer to it. Aside from sigils, George uses pelts and skins all the time to point out that a certain character falls within a certain animal-category. This is something I have pointed out several times in some of the bear-maiden essays. Even if a character does not have a bear sigil, him or her wearing a bear pelt implies they “skinchange” into a bear-character or (hope to) gain the power of the bear. This is also true for seal-skins and wolf cloaks. We could therefore regard the wearing of hairshirts as undergarment, directly to the skin, as George hinting at the nature of the Warrior’s Sons as well. Except in this case, the hair is not worn outward, but inward. As a symbol wearing a hairshirt implies that we are talking about an actual beast that wants to appear as a hairless human. And since the Warrior’s Sons are such a parallel to the Others via visual symbolism, the hairshirt symbolism should also apply to the Others: they seem and appear humanoid, but on the inside, they are rough haired beasts. In the Plutonian Others we argued that their true nature and origin is that of the hairy ice spider.

Crystal Crest

What then is the crystal crest on the helm about? And how could it relate to the Others? Judging by Cairos’ illustration that is some serious ornament on the helm. The Fattest Leech came up with the proposal that it relates to the idea of mind control. And indeed, when we see those huge seven crsytal spikes on the helm of the Warrior’s Sons, they almost remind us of some type of antennae, more than a crown. And especially in a hierarchical order where the Warrior’s Sons are mere soldiers, but are the sole ones to wear these crests (unlike septons) one can see why they might need antennae to receive orders.

Of course, with the Warrior’s Sons, the crystal antennae serve a purely symbolic ornamental purpose to show to us how these men are mind-controlled via religion. But as a parallel to the Others, it adds weight to the idea that the icy enemy does not just apply some form of mind control on wights, but are hive-mind-controlled as well. Hence we have five Others in the Prologue who move in for the kill simultaneously without requiring vocal communication.

The watchers moved forward together, as if some signal had been given. (aGoT, Prologue)

As of yesterday, the 2020 aSoIaF callendar has been published with illustrations by Jon Howe, and Treegirl took a picture of an illustration called Night’s King and revealed it on Twitter.

nightsking
Night’s King, by John Howe, aSoIaF Callendar 2020

As he did with his illustration of the Others on Ice Spiders, John Howe converted the subject of his illustration. With the Others riding Ice Spiders, he made a symbolical representation of the Others wearing cowls and carrying a scythe and mostly put the focus on the huge Ice Spiders. The above illustration Night’s King depicts the 13th Lord Commander in the background, while the Corpse Queen takes the center stage. Notice how her hair is like a giant crest of hundred of ice crystals and the irridescent effect John Howe managed to depict in it. Those are a bunch of ice crystal antennae. And does it not look like she has fangs?

The idea of seeing those crystal crests as antennaes by which the Warrior’s Sons are mind controlled stems from several 1000 world novellas and short stories of George. We will discuss several examples here.

The Greeshka

In the 1974 A Song for Lya you get to visit the planet of the native Shkeen. It is also the home of a mold-like parasite called Greeshka. For some reason the native Shkeen Join with a Greeshka.

On their heads rode the Greeshka. I’d expected to find the sight hideous. I didn’t. It was faintly disquieting, but only because I knew what it meant. The parasites were bright blobs of crimson goo, ranging in size from a pulsing wart on the back of one Shkeen skull to a great sheet of dripping, moving red that covered the head and shoulders of the smallest like a living cowl. The Greeshka lived by sharing nutrients in the Shkeen bloodstream, I knew. And also by slowly – oh so slowly – consuming its host. (A Song for Lya)

In time the Joined perform Final Union, a non-formal ritual that essentially comes down to voluntarily suicide, like a lemming. The Joined Shkeen seeks out a cave where a monstrously big Greeshka “lives”, steps right up to it, lays down against it and in a matter of days ends up consumed by it. Two telepathic talents (Robb and Lyanna) are hired to investigate this “religion”, because the past few years human settlers have converted and Joined. When they meet the above described Joined Shkeen, they discover that they are extremely happy, feel loved and love everyone deeply – how people describe being with God must feel like. The love and connection feeling is so intense that none of the Joined ever feel lonely anymore. This is the lie that the Greeshka feeds to Shkeen and humans, in order for them to be willing hosts and food. This is not the essay to figure out the enigma on how Greeshka manage to have such a mind control (it is not drug related), but to establish the fact that they do, and it starts with literally putting a Greeshka on the skull and ending up feeling continuous deep connecting love. That it is an illusion and a trap, we can gather from the fact that the Greeshka is red and the monstrous size ones in the caves are an entangled web of Greeshka texture. Anyway, here we a concept from George by putting something weird on your head and being mind-controlled.

Hrangan Minds

Other stories where the mind is influenced is And Seven Times Never Kill Man, also of 1974. In that novella, the fanatical Steel Angels who follow the pale child Bakkalon of the Sword (yes, the one and the same Bakkalon, the Pale Child that is featured in the House of Black and White) set up a city intent on colonising a planet in a valley they refer to as Sword Valley.

The natives are called the Jainshi, a grey furred humanoid species with golden eyes and no taller than five feet. They live in trees in clans or tribes of forty individuals, but after sunset they worhsip red pyramids that each house a god.

“Interesting,” [Ryther] said finally, after studying the shard for several minutes. It was as hard and smooth as glass, but stronger; colored a translucent red, yet so very dark it was almost black. “A plastic?” she asked, throwing it back to the ground.
NeKrol shrugged. “That was my very guess, but of course it is impossible. The Jainshi work in bone and wood and sometimes metal, but plastic is centuries beyond them.”
“Or behind them,” Ryther said. “You say these worship pyramids are scattered all through the forest?” (And Seven Times Never Kill Man)

The Jainshi are portrayed as pacifists, living in harmony with their environment. They do not hunt for meat, unless hogs and other animals become too numerous and require culling, nor do predators hunt the Jainshi. As the Steel Angels do not recognize any other god than Bakkalon and believe humans to be the sole species as having a soul they begin to destroy several of the pyramids and order the Jainshi to disperse.

The third clan this happens to attempts to defend their pyramid. Though their hunting arsenal is not a match against the advanced technological arms of the Steel Angels, they managed to kill a man. In revenge, the Steel Angels string up several Jainshi, including their children, as a message to the surviving soulless “animals” to never rebel against humans who have the god-given right to take whatever they want and dominate worlds as violent as they please.

“And the pale child heard, and came again, for the sound of battle is more pleasing to his ears than the sound of wails. And when He saw, He smiled. “Now you are my children again,” He said to the seed of Earth. ‘For you had turned against me to worship a god who calls himself a lamb, but did you not know that lambs go only to the slaughter? Yet now your eyes have cleared, and again you are the Wolves of God!” (And Seven Times Never Kill Man)

The Proctor of the Steel Angels (comparable to the High Sparrow’s status) communicates with Bakkalon through visions. During the first winter, he receives several visions and predicts the following miracle – Bakkalon has walked on this world and instructed the Jainshi on submitting to the will of the Steel Angels. And indeed when spring comes around and the Steel Angels move out of Sword Valley to expand their territory, the Jainshi allow them to destroy their pyramid, disperse to join other clans, and they leave a carved statuette for the Steel Angels – all Bakkalons with his sword.

As the evicted Jainshi join the Jainshi tribe at the Waterfall pyramid, the population outgrows sustainability. They are so numerous that the Steel Angels are unnerved by it, and decide to move on them with blast canons, ordering them to disperse. In their experience this works best when they destroy the pyramid. But before they can, the red pyramid transformed itself into a crystal pyramid with Bakkalon inside, before their very eyes.

NeKrol stood paralyzed. The pyramid on the rock was no longer a reddish slab. Now it sparkled in the sunlight, a canopy of transparent crystal. And below that canopy, perfect in every detail, the pale child Bakkalon stood smiling, with his Demon-Reaver in his hand. (And Seven Times Never Kill a Man)

Due to inner disagreements, a massacre between the two factions cannot be avoided – and many of the Jainshi get killed as well as do some Steel Angels, most importantly the suspicious DaHan –  but ultimately the Steel Angels take the pyramid back to their city.

Wyatt was twice as skeletal as[Ryther] remembered him. He had been standing outdoors, near the foot of a huge platform-altar that had been erected in the middle of the city. A startlingly lifelike statue of Bakkalon, encased in a glass pyramid and set atop a high redstone plinth, threw a long shadow over the wooden altar. (And Seven Times Never Kill a Man)

But on account of visions given to them by the Crystal Pyramid Bakkalon, the Steel Angels completely alter their way – they drop their weapons, burn their winter crop believing that henceforth there will be an eternal summer, and cull their own numbers in peace by hanging their own children from their walls this time.

Wyatt gestured toward the altar with a thin hand. “See? In tribute we burn our winter stores, for the pale child has promised that this year winter will not come. And He has taught us to cull ourselves in peace as once we were culled in war, so the seed of Earth grows even stronger. It is a time of great new Revelation!”
[…]
Outside the walls the Angel children hung, a row of small white-smocked bodies still and motionless at the end of long ropes. They had gone peacefully, all of them, but death is seldom peaceful; the older ones, at least, died quickly, necks broken with a sudden snap. But the small pale infants had the nooses round their waists, and it had seemed clear to Ryther that most of them had simply hung there till they starved.  (And Seven Times Never Kill a Man)

All the while, we have been given hints through the POV of an atheistic trader Arik neKrol and the doubts of the Steel Angel Weaponmaster DaHan that the forces that live within the pyramids are telepathic who can extract imagery, ideas and beliefs from minds, and then they have the tribe’s carver make that image to manipulate the one it is gifted to, until eventually they exert hive-mind control over their worshippers.

DaHan was not chief of Psychological Weaponry and Enemy Intelligence for nothing.

“Yet there is a tale, my Proctor – one that troubles me. Once, it is said, in the long centuries of war, the Sons of Hranga loosed upon the seed of Earth foul vampires of the mind, the creatures men called soul-sucks. Their touch was invisible, but it crept across kilometers, farther than a man could see, farther than a laser could fire, and it brought madness. Visions, my Proctor, visions! False gods and foolish plans were put in the minds of men, and ….” (And Seven Times Never Kill a Man)

And indeed the closer one is to a pyramid the easier it is for the pyramids to influence the target. So these are likely Minds of Hranga who survived the galactic wars on some far away colony of theirs.

It turns out that neither the hogs oor the Jainshi are by nature docile or pacifist. Both act far more aggressive after the initial pyramids are destroyed. These “godless” Jainshi also become sexually hyperactive (comparable to bonobos), can feel bitterness and anger, are fully willing to rush into martial conflict with the Steel Angels to protect the mind-controlled Jainshi. And then there is the hint given to us in the change of the color of the eyes. With the godless Jainshi it changed from golden to bronze. Whereas the Proctor’s eyes acquire golden flecks by the end of the story.

His eyes had burned as he spoke to her; eyes darting and fanatic, vast and dark yet strangely flecked with gold. (And Seven Times Never Kill a Man)

Not only do the forces within the pyramids inhibit sexual desire, they compell both the Jainshi and the Steel Angels to cull hogs, commit infanticide and most importantly prevent cultural learning. The pyramids decide which Jainshi will have which status or role within the tribe. Only one speaks. Only one carves. They lack knowledge and understanding on how another can do these things. It is comparable to bee- or ant-hives where it is decided which larva will be a worker, queen, soldier or fertilizing male. And once this is decided, that is all they can do. In contrast, the godless orphaned Jainshi become curious and critical.

This short story comes with a great recommendation as it is deeply layered and requires several rereads to figure out what is going on exactly. So, while in this story, none of the mind-controlled actually wear something on their head, we have a reference to the number seven right in the title, a crystal pyramid, dogmatic fanatical religious thinking and control over the sexuality of individuals. The Faith established itself in Westeros through the xenophobic zealots of Andalos and their military hierarchical structure is similar to that of the Steel Angels. Yes, the pyramids are red-almost-black initially (so is Proctor), but the change in color to translucent glass-like pyramids implies that such is just “form”; that it remains mind-control no matter who does it.

Despite the color red dominating in this story, we get a spiderweb reference for the waterfall of the pyramid that turns into Bakkalon, the corpse like appearance of the Proctor, the Jainshi having grey fur, worship at night (never by day), blue lights outside the steel walls of the Steel Angels, and the godless Bitter Speaker Jainshi (who is much like Arya) ends up wearing a blue scarf.

Less than two kilometers from his base, neKrol found the camp of the Jainshi he called the Waterfall folk. They lived up against the side of a heavy-wooded hill, where a stream of tumbling blue-white water came sliding and bouncing down, dividing and rejoining itself over and over, so the whole hillside was an intricate glittering web of waterfalls and rapids and shallow pools and spraying wet curtains. The clan’s worship pyramid sat in the bottommost pool, on a flat gray stone in the middle of the eddies: taller than most Jaenshi, coming up to neKrol’s chin, looking infinitely heavy and solid and immovable, a three-sided block of dark, dark red. (Seven Times Never Kill Man)

Meanwhile the Others demanding sacrifice of children and lambs from Craster (and other wildlings who worship the Cold Gods, such as of the Frozen Shore) is also a callback to the culling required by the mind-controlling forces of the pyramids.

Psi-boosters

Aside from the Greeshka and Minds of Hranga, George often includes characters with telephatic abilities, such as the Talents Lyanna and Robb in A Song for Lya or Tuff’s cats with psi-abilities in Tuf Voyaging. Most of these characters only use their abilities to read, not to control. But in Tuf Voyaging’s origin short story the Plague Star (1985) we get a character who uses a psi-booster to control animals mentally. The Plague Star is a biowar seedship, a space-arc so to speak.

A team of treasure hunters hoping to win the jackpot attempt to board it and gain control over it. The original human controllers of it are long dead, because of an accidental release of a certain plague on board. And when the team boards the seedship they inadevertently set off its defence program: aside from plagues, it starts to genetically clone several type of monsters of various worlds found all over the galaxy. One of those is a T-Rex. On top of it all, these treasure hunters turn on one another, to claim sole ownership over it. Towards the end only Tuf, green-eyed hireling Rica Dawnstar and the T-Rex. Rica aims to get Tuf killed, and for this she requires a device that allows her to control the T-Rex’s mind.

Hooked over one arm of the captain’s throne was a thin coronet of iridescent metal that Rica had earlier removed from a storage cabinet. She picked it up, ran it under a scanner briefly to check the circuitry, and slid it over her head at a rakish angle. (Tuf Voyaging, The Plague Star)

So this is a type of crown-like object, in iridescent metal, to put on your head. In the final confrontation, Rica explains and demonstrates it to Tuf.

The tyrannosaur took one step, two, three, and now it was directly behind her, its shadow casting her in darkness.
“How manipulated?” asked Haviland Tuf.
“I thought you’d never ask,” said Rica Dawnstar. The tyrannosaur leaned forward, roared, opened its massive jaws, engulfed her head. “Psionics,” she said from between its teeth.
“Indeed,” said Haviland Tuf.
“A simple psionic capacity,” Rica announced from inside the tyrannosaur’s jaws. She reached up and picked something from between its teeth, with a tsking sound. “Some of the monsters were close to mindless, all instinct. They got a basic instinctual aversion. The more complex monsters were made psionically submissive. The instruments of control were psi-boosters. Pretty little things, like crowns. I’m wearing one now. It doesn’t confer psi-powers or anything dramatic like that. It just makes some of the monsters avoid me, and other ones obey me.” She ducked out of the dinosaur’s mouth, and slapped the side of his jaw soundly. “Down, boy,” she said.
The tyrannosaur roared, and lowered its head. Rica Dawnstar untangled her harness and saddle and began to strap it into place. “I’ve been controlling him all the time we’ve been talking,” she said conversationally. “I called him here. He’s hungry. He ate Lion, but Lion was small, and dead, too, and he hasn’t had anything else for a thousand years.” (Tuf Voyaging, The Plague Star)

Rica Dawnstar even manages to ride the T-Rex, like a dragon. The difference to the Greeshka and the Warrior’s Sons, Rica wears a crown not to be controlled but to mentally control others, like the Minds of Hranga inside the pyramids do with those in reach.

If the High Sparrow had not sold the High Septon’s crown, we could say he would be wearing the control device to give orders to the Warrior’s Sons from a distance. But the High Sparrow is content with religious doctrinal control alone. We doubt the Corpse Queen sold her icy-spiked hair though.

The Tricks of the Fox

Let us return to the first scene where the Warrior’s Sons actually appear on page in Cersei’s POV.

The delegation from the Faith was headed by her old friend Septon Raynard. Six of the Warrior’s Sons escorted him across the city; together they were seven, a holy and propitious number. (aFfC, Cersei VIII)

As I mentioned the number six is significant and we will examine in how much Septon Raynard is still to be considered a friend to Cersei in this scene.

Septon Raynard is one of the Most Devout. This is a conclave comparable to the Cardinals in the Catholic Church who elect a new Pope amongst the candidates, with that exception that in Westeros’s Faith the Mos Devout also include Septas and thus female worshippers also have a vote in who gets to be the new High Septon. Raynard was rumored to be in the running for the job, and Cersei seemed to be looking forward to that.

“No,” said Cersei, “but we must hope that his successor is more vigorous. My friends upon the other hill tell me that it will most like be Torbert or Raynard.”(aFfC, Cersei IV)

Instead the sparrows force the Most Devout’s hands and the High Sparrow is elected instead. We later learn why Cersei would have preferred Raynard or Torbert, when the High Sparrow has not yet come to bless King Tommen.

“Orton says it is the gold [the High Sparrow] really wants. That he means to withhold his blessing until the crown resumes its payments.”
“The Faith will have its gold as soon as we have peace.” Septon Torbert and Septon Raynard had been most understanding of her plight … (aFfC, Cersei VI)

Since the High Sparrow ignores Cersei’s summons, she ends up visiting the High Sparrow herself at the Sept of Baelor.

Two had the insolence to cross their spears and bar her way. “Is this how you receive your queen?” she demanded of them. “Pray, where are Raynard and Torbert?” It was not like those two to miss a chance to fawn on her. Torbert always made a show of getting down on his knees to wash her feet.
“I do not know the men you speak of,” said one of the men with a red star on his surcoat, “but if they are of the Faith, no doubt the Seven had need of their service.”
“Septon Raynard and Septon Torbert are of the Most Devout,” Cersei said, “and will be furious to learn that you obstructed me. Do you mean to deny me entrance to Baelor’s holy sept?” (aFfC, Cersei VI)

Once Cersei gains entry, to her shock she discovers Raynard scrubbing the floor while wearing a roughspun robe.

In the Hall of Lamps, Cersei found a score of septons on their knees, but not in prayer. They had pails of soap and water, and were scrubbing at the floor. Their roughspun robes and sandals led Cersei to take them for sparrows, until one raised his head. His face was red as a beet, and there were broken blisters on his hands, bleeding. “Your Grace.”
“Septon Raynard?” The queen could scarce believe what she was seeing. “What are you doing on your knees?”
“He is cleaning the floor.” The speaker was shorter than the queen by several inches and as thin as a broom handle. “Work is a form of prayer, most pleasing to the Smith.” He stood, scrub brush in hand. “Your Grace. We have been expecting you.” (aFfC, Cersei VI)

In Septon Raynard we recognize a reference to Reyneart the Fox* and Cersei’s plot in aFfC is analogous to it.

* For clarity I will refer to the medieval literary character as Reynaert (and not the English Reynard) or the fox to differentiate from the septon’s name Raynard.

In the medieval plot, the fox fails the summons of King Nobel (a lion) to defend and explain himself several times against the crimes he is accused of. Eventually Reynaert is persuaded to appear. And when he does, the fox lies and slanders Noble’s allies (Brune the bear and Ysengrim the wolf) in such a way that he manages to make King Noble believe in a conspiracy as well as Reynaert having buried a treasure to foil the usurping plans of Brune and Ysengrim. Except, there is no treasure and no conspiracy. The anology is evident: Cersei believes her allies, the Tyrells, to be plotting to take the throne, and possibly even wanting to harm Tommen. Like King Noble, through her own actions and choices, she alienates her allies and creates enemies out of them. The sole difference to the Reynaert plot is that Cersei comes up with this all on her own, without needing a fox to feed her lies. Gold and treasure is also a constant reappearing want of hers. But instead of having Cersei go on an active treasure hunt, George has her break her repayment contract with the Iron Bank and the Faith, appropriate Rosby lands and castle, etc. And it is with the treasury in mind that Cersei arranges a deal with the High Sparrow in private, much like King Noble does with Reynaert the Fox, where she will enable the re-erection of the Faith Militant in exchange for the High Sparrow’s blessing of King Tommen and the crown’s debt to the Faith forgiven.

High Septon pondered that a moment. “As you wish. This debt shall be forgiven, and King Tommen will have his blessing. The Warrior’s Sons shall escort me to him, shining in the glory of their Faith, whilst my sparrows go forth to defend the meek and humble of the land, reborn as Poor Fellows as of old.” (aFfC, Cersei VI)

The actual mental fox character intending to trick Cersei in this plot is the High Sparrow. The issue for George is that the High Sparrow himself is a devout man, while the medieval Reynaert the fox is as corrupt as any of the other animals he tricks. Reynaert the fox is a noble vassal, who either pretends to go on a pilgrimage to Rome or to be a penitent preaching monk as a scam to commit murder. So, in order to suitably reference this historical work, George inserts a septon who is known by Cersei to be a corrupt clergyman and has him be called Raynard. Whenever we see septon Raynard, George evokes this false penitent image of Reynaert the fox through Cersei’s POV. Cersei’s recollections of septon Raynard fawning over her in the past fits the trickster’s MO as well – like any conman Reyneart first flatters, then hints to something his target desires, and once baited and shamed, the fox flatters his victim again to put salt on the wounded pride. Thus, George splits the analogies across two characters: the High Sparrow does the tricking, while Septon Raynard gets the characterization.

For example, the High Sparrow ignores the crown’s summons to court several times. Cersei has to come to him instead to make the deal about the debt and Tommen’s blessing.

Cersei let the curtain fall. “This is absurd.”
“It is, Your Grace,” Lady Merryweather agreed. “The High Septon should have come to you. And these wretched sparrows . . .” (aFfC, Cersei VI)

“Where is the High Septon?” she demanded of Raynard. “It was him I summoned.” (aFfC, Cersei VIII)

Though Cersei has been scheming against Margaery before her visit to the High Sparrow, it is not until her return from Baelor’s Sept and feeling secure about the deal she struck over the gold the treasury owes the Faith, that Cersei conceives of a full blown conspiracy theory.

Every day in every way [Margaery] tries to steal [Tommen] from me. Joffrey would have seen through her schemer’s smile and let her know her place, but Tommen was more gullible. She knew Joff was too strong for her, Cersei thought, remembering the gold coin Qyburn had found. For House Tyrell to hope to rule, he had to be removed. It came back to her that Margaery and her hideous grandmother had once plotted to marry Sansa Stark to the little queen’s crippled brother Willas. Lord Tywin had forestalled that by stealing a march on them and wedding Sansa to Tyrion, but the link had been there. They are all in it together, she realized with a start. The Tyrells bribed the gaolers to free Tyrion, and whisked him down the roseroad to join his vile bride. By now the both of them are safe in Highgarden, hidden away behind a wall of roses. (aFfC, Cersei VI)

While the High Sparrow may ignore the personal summons, he at some points does send a delegation including a Reynaert representative via Septon Raynard, while simultaneously making the High Sparrow out to be on a most important mission for the Faith – battle wickedness. This is analogous to Reynaert’s excuse to King Noble that he cannot join King Noble for he has to go on pilgrimage to Rome to lift the ban on him.

Septon Raynard assumed a regretful tone. “His High Holiness sent me in his stead, and bade me tell Your Grace that the Seven have sent him forth to battle wickedness.” (aFfC, Cersei VIII)

This should alert the reader that we have come at the phase of the story where the fox effectively entices the lion to betray his allies. And indeed in the same chapter that Septon Raynard came to her summons of the High Sparrow, Cersei comes up with an active plan ready to be executed to get rid of Margaery.

A sudden sickness would be best, but the gods were seldom so obliging. How then? A knife, a pillow, a cup of heart’s bane? All of those posed problems. When an old man died in his sleep no one thought twice of it, but a girl of six-and-ten found dead in bed was certain to raise awkward questions. Besides, Margaery never slept alone. Even with Ser Loras dying, there were swords about her night and day. Swords have two edges, though. The very men who guard her could be used to bring her down. The evidence would need to be so overwhelming that even Margaery’s own lord father would have no choice but to consent to her execution. That would not be easy. Her lovers are not like to confess, knowing it would mean their heads as well as hers. Unless . . .

“If it came to it, could [Osney] defeat Ser Boros Blount?”
“Boros the Belly?” Ser Osmund chortled. “He’s what, forty? Fifty? Half-drunk half the time, fat even when he’s sober. If he ever had a taste for battle, he’s lost it. Aye, Your Grace, if Ser Boros wants for killing, Osney could do it easy enough. Why? Has Boros done some treason?”
“No,” she said. But Osney has. (aFfC, Cersei VIII)

However, while Cersei’s head is mostly occupied with coming up with a way to see Margaery dead, she fails to understand the subtextual warnings in her debate with Septon Raynard.

“How? By preaching chastity along the Street of Silk? Does he think praying over whores will turn them back to virgins?”
“Our bodies were shaped by our Father and Mother so we might join male to female and beget trueborn children,” Raynard replied. “It is base and sinful for women to sell their holy parts for coin.”
The pious sentiment would have been more convincing if the queen had not known that Septon Raynard had special friends in every brothel on the Street of Silk. No doubt he had decided that echoing the High Sparrow’s twitterings was preferable to scrubbing floors. “Do not presume to preach at me,” she told him. “The brothel keepers have been complaining, and rightly so.”
“If sinners speak, why should the righteous listen?” (aFfC, Cersei VIII)

Cersei regards Septon Raynard as falsely devout and corrupt, an unwilling septon who is kept in line by the six Warrior’s Sons who escorted him and preferring to be the High Sparrow’s echo over scrubbing floors. Except one of those escorting Swords is Lancel.

And then there was Lancel. She had thought Qyburn must be japing when he had told her that her mooncalf cousin had forsaken castle, lands, and wife and wandered back to the city to join the Noble and Puissant Order of the Warrior’s Sons, yet there he stood with the other pious fools. Cersei liked that not at all. (aFfC, Cersei VIII)

And in Lancel we have a third match to Reynaert the fox. When the first complaints and accusations against Reynaert are made at court about the fox, his badger nephew makes these assertions.

Since the king proclaimed his peace on pain of punishment, I know for a fact that he behaved no worse than if he were a hermit or a recluse. Next to his skin he wears a hair shirt. Within the past year he ate no meat, neither wild nor tame animals. So someone said who yesterday came from there. He has left Macroys, his castle, and has built a cell where he now lives. He surely has no other possessions or income than the alms given him. Pale he is and thin with doing penance. Hunger, thirst, sharp chastisement he suffers for his sins’. (Of Reynaert the Fox, King Noble Holds Court 264-281)

Where the original author “Willem who wrote Madocke” has the badger describe a false hearsay portrait of the fox, George actually has Lancel go through such a described self-penitence. Even at Tywin’s funeral, Lancel’s looks have greatly altered, while Jaime sees him even more harrowed at Darry’s.

Though only seventeen, he might have passed for seventy; grey-faced, gaunt, with hollow cheeks, sunken eyes, and hair as white and brittle as chalk. […] Lancel lingered, the very picture of a man with one foot in the grave. But is he climbing in or climbing out?[…] Her cousin’s voice was as wispy as the mustache on his upper lip. Though his hair had gone white, his mustache fuzz remained a sandy color. […] It looks like a smudge of dirt on his lip. (aFfC, Cersei II)

Lancel looked even thinner than he had at King’s Landing. He was barefoot, and dressed in a plain, roughspun tunic of undyed wool that made him look more like a beggar than a lord. The crown of his head had been shaved smooth, but his beard had grown out a little. To call it peach fuzz would have given insult to the peach. It went queerly with the white hair around his ears. (aFfC, Jaime IV)

At Darry, Jaime sees all the evidence of Lancel living and sleeping in the sept, instead of the castle.

“Lord Lancel has been sleeping in the sept.”
Sleeping with the Mother and the Maiden, when he has a warm wife just through that door? Jaime did not know whether to laugh or weep. […] The seven gods loomed above carved altars, the dark wood gleaming in the candlelight. A faint smell of incense hung in the air. “You sleep down here?”
“Each night I make my bed beneath a different altar, and the Seven send me visions.” (aFfC, Jaime IV)

He learns from Amerei that Lancel fasts, and later Lancel admits it. Jaime’s efforts to extract a promise from Lancel that he will eat if he joins him in prayer is without result.

“My lord prefers to fast,” said Lancel’s wife, the Lady Amerei. “He’s sick with grief for the poor High Septon.” […] Fasting? He is an even bigger fool than I suspected. His cousin should be busy fathering a little weasel-faced heir on his widow instead of starving himself to death.

[…]

Baelor the Blessed once had visions too. Especially when he was fasting. “How long has it been since you’ve eaten?”
“My faith is all the nourishment I need.”
“Faith is like porridge. Better with milk and honey.”
“I dreamed that you would come. In the dream you knew what I had done. How I’d sinned. You killed me for it.”
“You’re more like to kill yourself with all this fasting. Didn’t Baelor the Blessed fast himself onto a bier?”
“Our lives are candle flames, says The Seven-Pointed Star. Any errant puff of wind can snuff us out. Death is never far in this world, and seven hells await sinners who do not repent their sins. Pray with me, Jaime.”
“If I do, will you eat a bowl of porridge?” (aFfC, Jaime IV)

And when Jaime puts his hand on Lancel’s shoulders he can feel that Lancel wears a hair shirt.

Jaime put his hand on his cousin’s shoulder. […] Jaime could feel the bones beneath his cousin’s skin . . . and something else as well. Lancel was wearing a hair shirt underneath his tunic. (aFfC, Jaime IV)

Their meeting ends with Lancel announcing his intention to leave “his castle and relinquish all possessions” to become a Warrior’s Son.

“Lancel, you’re a bloody fool.”
“You are not wrong,” said Lancel, “but my folly is behind me, ser. I have asked the Father Above to show me the way, and he has. I am renouncing this lordship and this wife. […] On the morrow I will return to King’s Landing and swear my sword to the new High Septon and the Seven. I mean to take vows and join the Warrior’s Sons.“

Like the badger, Jaime can attest that “next to his skin [his cousin] wears a hair shirt. Within the past year he ate no meat, neither wild nor tame animals.” Except, in this case it is not hearsay, but a true account. So, in Cersei’s arc we have three Reynaerts: the High Sparrow who sets up a trap for a lion queen, Septon Raynard who is the flattering corrupt fox saving his own hide, and Lancel the pilgrim seeking penitence and salvation.

Jaime questions the motive behind Lancel’s wish to return King’s Landing though.

“Even if this is true . . . you are a lion of the Rock, a lord. You have a wife, a castle, lands to defend, people to protect. If the gods are good, you will have sons of your blood to follow you. Why would you throw all that away for . . . for some vow?”
“Why did you?” asked Lancel softly.
For honor, Jaime might have said. For glory. That would have been a lie, though. Honor and glory had played their parts, but most of it had been for Cersei. A laugh escaped his lips. “Is it the High Septon you’re running to, or my sweet sister? Pray on that one, coz. Pray hard.” (aFfC, Jaime IV)

And this question has merit. Lancel’s praying at Darry does not come out of nowhere. It is not solely his guilt that compels him. Cersei actually told him to.

“When it seemed that I might die, my father brought the High Septon to pray for me. He is a good man.” Her cousin’s eyes were wet and shiny, a child’s eyes in an old man’s face. “He says the Mother spared me for some holy purpose, so I might atone for my sins.”
Cersei wondered how he intended to atone for her. Knighting him was a mistake, and bedding him a bigger one. Lancel was a weak reed, and she liked his newfound piety not at all; he had been much more amusing when he was trying to be Jaime. What has this mewling fool told the High Septon? […] If he confessed to bedding Cersei, well, she could weather that. […] If he sings of Robert and the strongwine, though . . . “Atonement is best achieved through prayer,” Cersei told him. “Silent prayer.” She left him to think about that and girded herself to face the Tyrell host. (aFfC, Cersei II)

Just as he went through with the marriage of Amerei as Cersei told him to.

A gloomy look passed across the young knight’s ravaged face. “A Frey girl, and not of my choosing. She is not even maiden. A widow, of Darry blood. My father says that will help me with the peasants, but the peasants are all dead.” He reached for her hand. “It is cruel, Cersei. Your Grace knows that I love—”
“—House Lannister,” she finished for him. “No one can doubt that, Lancel. May your wife give you strong sons.” Best not let her lord grandfather host the wedding, though. “I know you will do many noble deeds in Darry.”
Lancel nodded, plainly miserable. (aFfC, Cersei II)

To Jaime, Lancel reiterates that he did not want to be Lord of Darry, that he wanted to be Jaime and that he loved Cersei. He confesses all to Jaime.

When his coz did not answer, Jaime sighed. “You should be sleeping with your wife, not with the Maid. You need a son with Darry blood if you want to keep this castle.”
“A pile of cold stones. I never asked for it. I never wanted it. I only wanted . . .” Lancel shuddered. “Seven save me, but I wanted to be you.”
Jaime had to laugh. “Better me than Blessed Baelor […] In any case, you’re not like to be taken for Baelor the Blessed.”
“No,” Lancel allowed. “He was a rare spirit, pure and brave and innocent, untouched by all the evils of the world. I am a sinner, with much and more to atone for.”
Jaime put his hand on his cousin’s shoulder. “What do you know of sin, coz? I killed my king.”
“The brave man slays with a sword, the craven with a wineskin. We are both kingslayers, ser.”
“Robert was no true king. Some might even say that a stag is a lion’s natural prey.” […]”What else did you do, to require so much atonement? Tell me.”
His cousin bowed his head, tears running down his cheeks.
Those tears were all the answer Jaime needed. “You killed the king,” he said, “then you fucked the queen.” […] “Did you force her?”
“No! I loved her. I wanted to protect her.” […] “Do not think ill of the queen,” Lancel pleaded. “All flesh is weak, Jaime. No harm came of our sin. No . . . no bastard.” […] “I was angry with Her Grace after the battle, but the High Septon said I must forgive her.”
“You confessed your sins to His High Holiness, did you?”
“He prayed for me when I was wounded. He was a good man.”
He’s a dead man. They rang the bells for him. He wondered if his cousin had any notion what fruit his words had borne. (aFfC, Jaime IV)

There is a change in Lancel’s talk of feelings and desires than when he last spoke Cersei though. At Tywin’s funeral, Lancel is about to say that he loves Cersei still. In his exchange with Jaime he talks of (romantic) love and his anger in the past tense. At the time Lancel decides to join the Warrior’s Sons, he is not in love with Cersei anymore. Yet, he still feels protective of her and Jaime. He wants to “save” them, show them how to deal with the burden of guilt. But neither Jaime or Cersei feel guilt. Jaime feels he saved a city from being burned. His relationship with Cersei predates her marriage, always has been one of mutual consent and he was ever faithful to her. And Cersei of course is incapable of feeling guilt.

If Lancel’s feelings have evolved thus with distance, time and guilt, then how would the mute confrontation with Cersei be during a debate between Septon Raynard and Cersei over fornication from behind a truth-seeing mirror-armor have impacted Lancel? The fair conclusion is that Lancel’s last protective feelings towards Cersei would have crumbled. Like Areo Hotah can see objective truth, so would Lancel in this case. Whatever reserve we can imagine that may have held Lancel back from revealing the darkest of Cersei’s deeds (getting King Robert killed) to the High Sparrow, he certainly would have told all after this confrontation, and thus become an instrumental part for the High Sparrow to prey on a lion.

The question then becomes: how much Lancel had already told the High Sparrow by the time he escorts Septon Raynard, and how much did Septon Raynard knew of it? The High Sparrow’s initial dealings with Cersei are those of one who intends to prove he is independent and having the insight that the queen-regent needs something of him more than he needs of her. As the High Sparrow seems content with the deal struck between them, any issues he has with Cersei at this point only regard her vanity and pride. He humbles the Most Devout in similar ways, by having Septon Raynard scrub the floors and put Septon Torbert on a diet. Meanwhile, Lancel is living as a recluse in the sept of Darry.

Then off page, Lancel arrives in King’s Landing and joins the Warrior’s Sons. Even the High Sparrow’s curiosity would be peaked at a young man who has recently been made Lord, suddenly deciding to abandon castle, lands and new wife. Especially if this man is not Baelor the Blessed, but very much refers to himself as a sinner. And even more stunning is that this man is a Lannister of the main branch, the proud lions – a first cousin.

Close to a hundred knights had already come forth to pledge their lives and swords to the Warrior’s Sons, Qyburn claimed, and more turned up every day. […] Most had been household knights and hedge knights, but a handful were of high birth; younger sons, petty lords, old men wanting to atone for the old sins. And then there was Lancel. (aFfC, Cersei VIII)

Which words first sparked Lancel to confess and share his personal story to the High Sparrow is not so important, but at the very least, the High Sparrow would have learned of Cersei’s affair with Lancel shortly after his arrival. Lancel had already confessed to the prior High Septon, whom he grieved over. He certainly held nothing back to Jaime. A kind urging from the High Sparrow would have helped Lancel spill the beans over his affair with Cersei at least and how the prior High Septon had helped him repent. Then, in the High Sparrow’s eyes, Cersei is not just some proud and vain queen-regent anymore who required a lesson on humility, but becomes a far more immoral and ruthless regent who will rule for seven years more. Hence, the High Sparrow makes sure to never set foot into the Red Keep himself anymore. And what he gaveth by forgiving the crown’s debt, he can taketh away again by hurting the crown’s revenue from the brothels. When the High Septon accompanied by his Warrior’s Sons preaches in front of the brothels, the customers stay away, for the men would not want to be caught dead seen entering a brothel. Simultaneously, he prepares the smallfolk’s opinion about chastity to chasticise Cersei herself. Lancel being amongst the Warrior’s Sons escorting Septon Raynard is not a coincidence.

Meanwhile our prior fawning and flattering Septon Raynard has turned into a man who can eloquently debate with Cersei, hinting he regards Cersei a sinner whose words are wind and what may be at stake here: the legitimacy of Cersei’s children. At this point it makes no sense for the informed High Sparrow to send a septon to be his voice to Cersei without being secure of Septon Raynard’s allegiance.  So, we can conclude that by then Septon Raynard is like wighted Ser Waymar – a turned man.

These allusions to Reyneart the Fox are entertaining and interesting, certainly in light of Cersei’s arc, but why go down this foxhole in an essay where we investigate mirror-armor wearing Warrior’s Sons to the Others? It is not as if anyone requires the Reynaert allusions to come to the same conclusion what the High Sparrow knows by the time Lancel joins the Swords or that Septon Raynard is turned, is it?

In the Plutonian Others, we mentioned Tad Williams’ trilogy Memory, Sorrow and Thorn. George has admitted it to be one of his inspirations that helped him believe it was possible to write epic fantasy that questioned or deconstructed the tropes.

Tad’s fantasy series, The Dragonbone Chair and the rest of his famous four-book trilogy was one of the things that inspired me to write my own seven-book trilogy. I read Tad and was impressed by him, but the imitators that followed — well, fantasy got a bad rep for being very formulaic and ritual. And I read The Dragonbone Chair and said, “My god, they can do something with this form,” and it’s Tad doing it. It’s one of my favorite fantasy series. (SSM: Redwood City Signing 2011)

When the American fantasy writer Tad Williams first met Game of Thrones author George RR Martin, Martin growled at him: “Get the hell out of here.” This was not yet another egoistic literary beef; Martin merely wanted his fellow author to get home and finish the next instalment of his Memory, Sorrow and Thorn series, which Martin had been patiently waiting to read. (Tropes, trolls and Trump: the fantasy writer who inspired George RR Martin, Interview by David Barnett of Tad Williams, The Guardian, 17 Jan 2017)

There the existential threat comes from a split of sithi race living in the icy north. They are called the Norns, but are also referred to as White Foxes.

One of the four standing figures raised an arm, the black sleeve falling away to reveal a wrist and hand as thin and white as bone. It spoke, voice silvery-cold, toneless as ice cracking. “We are here to fulfill the covenant.” […] Two of the robed figures moved to the wagon, carefully lifting down a long, dark object. […] The black robes billowed, and the hood on the nearest blew back, spilling a flurry of gleaming white hair. The face revealed in the brief moment was delicate as a mask of the thinnest, most exquisite ivory. An instant later the hood flapped back.
Who are these creatures? Witches? Ghosts? Behind the shielding rocks Simon brought a trembling hand up to make the sign of the Tree. The white foxes …. Morgenes said “white foxes” … (The Dragonbone Chair, 14 The Hill Fire, by Tad Williams)

Overall we have a shared concept between both authors – a humanoid sidhe-appearing species living in the icy north as an existential threat to humans. George himself explained to illustrator Tommy Patterson that the Others are like sidhe made of ice. Without giving away any spoilers, the master of the White Foxes, Storm King Ineluki, plays a fox’s trick on the protagonists of the MST series, and thus their nickname is aptly chosen by Tad Williams.

With Reynaert the fox worked into Cersei’s plot with the Faith and the Warrior’s Sons parallelled to the Others (in their rainbow cloaks, silver mirror-armor, crystal crests and crystal swords), George manages to conjoin the Others with the trickster fox figure into a nod to Tad Williams’ White Foxes. What I have done above is reverse engineer George’s decisions on how to world-build the appearance of the Warrior’s Sons. First, George worked out the plot for Cersei in aFfC. As these characters of the Faith oppose a wildfire queen-regent they require to be surrounded by ice-symbolism and George knew his High Sparrow plot would have analogies to Of Reyneart the Fox. And thus both the Reyneart references and the look of the Warrior’s Sons helped him to create a concept-reference to Williams’ White Foxes, without actually involving the Others.

How can we be so sure that the world-building of the Warrior’s Sons goes hand in hand with the High Sparrow’s fox-trickster plot? Because both are first mentioned in aFfC, which was published in 2005. Any of the other back-story sources that describe or reference the Warrior’s Sons were published after aFfC. tWoIaF was published in 2014 and the short story The Sons of the Dragon in 2017 (also part of Fire and Blood, part 1, published in 2018). It would not just be a nod to Williams though or to “Willem who wrote Madocke” (the medieval author), but a subtextual tip that the Others have trickster-figure qualities, that they are plotting and planning, setting traps.

An earlier attempt of George to work in Reynaert allusions occurs in aCoK, in Davos’s arc. See, The Lambs in the extra reading subsection about Hens and Lambs. Except here the foxes are alligned to fire through Selyse Florent and the queen’s men.

Stone City

But the link between foxes and Others can be made with the aGoT Prologue alone already. For this we recommend reading George’s 1977 story The Stone City (transcribed at the Fattest Leech’s blog). This story involves an alien species called the Dan’lai, or foxmen. Holt is stranded at a planet beyond the innermost spacezone where human technology can take them. He and his fellow crewmen managed to get there with their spaceship Pegasus using a Dan’lai jumpdrive technology. But the jump drive was so exhausted they required certain fluids to travel onwards.

The Dan’lai set up this kafkian bureauctratic administration on this planet, while the shipless crew has to wait for the right stamps and okay to leave the Stone City. The administrative torment drove several crewmembers, including the captain into going underground below the Stone City, and they never emerged. Meanwhile, the Dan’lai also control the trade within the city. In exchange for stuff, you can get certain colored chips (like in a casino) with which you can buy food, drinks, etc. To trade for these colored coins, Holt must raid and steal from other stranded Stone City residents, such as the dangerous larvae-worm like Cedran. Holt never manages to trade all he stole, because he is partially pickpocketed already. And the foxmen ultimately re-sell the stuff to the creatures Holt stole it from.

Around a year after arriving at the Stone City, Holt manages to procure a gate-pass for a berth on the same spaceship he arrived on, the Pegasus, only to learn from the foxman that he also requires a stamp of approval from the captain, who is missing for a year now. Holt flips and kills the particular foxman, which forces him to flee and hide below the Stone City. Beneath the city Holt discovers a hallway with doors. This scene reminds us a lot of the tricks played on Dany in the House of the Undying, where she peers into certain doorways and sees scenes from the past and present. Holt sees similary clue-scenes through “windows” where the Dan’lai appear in. One such scene reveals that the Dan’lai tampered with the fluids of the jump-drive of the Pegasus, and were thus the culprits for stranding the crew.

[Holt] stood before another window, or perhaps a viewscreen; on the far side of the round crystal port, chaos swirled and screamed. He watched it briefly, and just as his head was starting to hurt, the swirling view solidified. If you could call it solid. Beyond the port, four Dan’lai sat with jump-gun tubes around their brows and a cylinder before them. Except—except—the picture was blurred. Ghosts, there were ghosts, second images that almost overlapped the first, but not quite, not completely. And then Holt saw a third image, and a fourth, and suddenly the picture cracked and it was as though he was looking into an infinite array of mirrors. Long rows of Dan’lai sat on top of each other, blurring into one another, growing smaller and smaller until they dwindled into nothingness. In unison—no, no, almost in unison (for here one image did not move with his reflections, and here another fumbled)—they removed the drained jump-gun tubes and looked at each other and began to laugh. Wild, high barking laughs; they laughed and laughed and laughed and Holt watched as the fires of madness burned in their eyes, and the foxmen all (no, almost all) hunched their slim shoulders and seemed more feral and animal than he had ever seen them. (The Stone City)

This is the devestating truth revealed to Holt as he looks through a window or viewscreen, while George inserts the effect of an array of mirrors. So, here we have a scene of evil tricksy foxes trapping arrivals, combined with looking from behind the mirror.

Far earlier, one of the first scenes Holt witnesses through such a viewscreen is a scene where the foxmen kill a Cedran.

Holt was standing in a window in an oddly shaped gray stone building, looking out over the stone city. […] Below, near an octagonal pool, six Dan’lai surrounded a Cedran. They were laughing, quick barking laughs full of rage, and they were chattering to each other and clawing at the Cedran whenever it tried to move. It stood above them trapped in the circle, confused and moaning, swaying back and forth. The huge violet eyes glowed brightly, and the fighting-claws waved.
One of the Dan’lai had something. He unfolded it slowly; a long jag-toothed knife. A second appeared, a third; all the foxmen had them. They laughed to each other. One of them darted in at the Cedran from behind, and the silvered blade flashed, and Holt saw black ichor ooze slowly from a long cut in the milk-white Cedran flesh. There was a blood-curdling low moan and the worm turned slowly as the Dan’la danced back, and its fighting-claws moved quicker than Holt would have believed. The Dan’la with the dripping black knife was lifted, kicking, into the air. He barked furiously, and then the claw snapped together, and the foxman fell in two pieces to the ground. But the others closed in, laughing, and their knives wove patterns and the Cedran’s moan became a screech. It lashed out with its claws and a second Dan’la was knocked headless into the waters, but by then two others were cutting off its thrashing tentacles and yet another had driven his blade hilt-deep into the swaying wormlike torso. All the foxmen were wildly excited; Holt could not hear the Cedran over their frantic barking. (The Stone City)

Despite the fact that the Cedran look so hideous and are indeed deadly dangerous themselves at night, Holt sympathizes with the Cedran. He takes out his laser and fires at the foxmen, only to have a curtain drop before the window and when he shoves it aside, the view through the window has changed – the Cedran and foxmen are gone. He could not alter what happened, because it was a view on a past event.

This particular scene has little relevance to Holt’s plot. But it shows the callous violent nature of the Dan’lai in a manner we do not see otherwise in the story, how Holt can sympathize with other species in pain, and is the first reveal about the nature of the hallway beneath the city: altered laws of space-time continuum, where he can see the past but not travel to it or change it, but he can travel to other worlds in his present, which operates at an entirely different time-scale than the one on the surface of the Stone City.

While some of the foxmen die in the fight scene with the Cedran, the number is incorrect and all the foxmen slash at the Cedran, it still strikes as an origin scene for the Prologue of aGoT. There Waymar Royce is surrounded by Others, mocked and eventually butchered while the Others laugh.

Behind him, to right, to left, all around him, the watchers stood patient, faceless, silent, the shifting patterns of their delicate armor making them all but invisible in the wood. Yet they made no move to interfere.
Again and again the swords met, until Will wanted to cover his ears against the strange anguished keening of their clash. […] Then Royce’s parry came a beat too late. The pale sword bit through the ringmail beneath his arm. The young lord cried out in pain. Blood welled between the rings. It steamed in the cold, and the droplets seemed red as fire where they touched the snow. Ser Waymar’s fingers brushed his side. His moleskin glove came away soaked with red.
The Other said something in a language that Will did not know; his voice was like the cracking of ice on a winter lake, and the words were mocking.
Ser Waymar Royce found his fury. “For Robert!” he shouted, and he came up snarling, lifting the frost-covered longsword with both hands and swinging it around in a flat sidearm slash with all his weight behind it. The Other’s parry was almost lazy. When the blades touched, the steel shattered.
A scream echoed through the forest night, and the longsword shivered into a hundred brittle pieces, the shards scattering like a rain of needles. Royce went to his knees, shrieking, and covered his eyes. Blood welled between his fingers. The watchers moved forward together, as if some signal had been given. Swords rose and fell, all in a deathly silence. It was cold butchery. The pale blades sliced through ringmail as if it were silk. Will closed his eyes. Far beneath him, he heard their voices and laughter sharp as icicles. (aGoT, Prologue)

So, in the Prologue of aGoT, George already linked the Others’ tricksy callous nature to foxes by re-using a scene from his own 1977 The Stone City. Important here as a distinction between Stone City foxmen and the foxes of the Faith is that the Dan’lai story does not have plot allusions to Reynaert yet, but a far more general portrayal of foxes as evil tricksters or Reyneart beating up Isengrym or simple-minded Brune. Only in the Lannister plotlines does George make various far more subtle allusions to the medieval story that cemented the fox as a malignant conman in the minds of people for hundreds of years now.

The Hens

More allusions by George to the plot of the Reynaert the Fox tale is seen in the plot surrounding Margaery. In “Of Reynaert the Fox”, right after the badger defended the accusations about his nephew the fox, Cantecleir the cock joins the court, bringing with him his dead daughter Coppe who was ‘of great repute’ on a bier carried by her two brothers. All used to live safely in the courtyard, protected by dogs, and no matter how much Reynaert the fox tried with tricks and traps, he just could not get access to the chicks. Then, a long while later, he appears as a hermit with a writ with King Noble’s seal, where the king declared peace to all animals in his kingdom, including birds (the feudal contract). Reynaert also claimed he had done penance, showing his pilgrim’s staff, mantle and the hair shirt he wears. He swore that from now on Lord Cantecleir and his family can live without need to protect themselves against him, because he swore to abstain from meat and is more occupied with saving his soul, as old as he is, than eating. Cantecleir believed him and went outside of the yard with all his children. But Reynaert had lain in wait and cut off the access back into the gate of the safe castle, and splurges on Cantecleir’s children, killing a total of eleven – both sons and daughters. The dogs managed to save Coppe’s body of being eaten, but not her life. The court buries Coppe with great ceremony, and King Noble agrees that the fox must stand trial for his murders. Cersei continuously compares Margaery’s handmaidens to hens, a total of seven times.

They were crossing beneath the shadow of the broken Tower of the Hand when the sound of cheers swept over them. Across the yard, some squire had made a pass at the quintain and sent the crossarm spinning. The cheers were being led by Margaery Tyrell and her hens. (aFfC, Cersei V)

The first time that George uses “hens” as a reference is exactly as Margaery and her handmaidens are cheering in the courtyard of the Red Keep, where supposedly they are protected and safe. And indeed, at the time her brother Loras is still at the Red Keep. Nevertheless, the chapter before that Cersei convinced Ser Osney Kettleback to seduce Margaery and take her maidenhead so that Margaery could lose her head. The name Coppe in middle-Dutch means “head”. 

“The little . . . Margaery, you mean?” Ser Osney’s ardor was wilting in his breeches. “She’s the king’s wife. Wasn’t there some Kingsguard who lost his head for bedding the king’s wife?”
“Ages ago.” She was his king’s mistress, not his wife, and his head was the only thing he did not lose. […] Cersei did not want Osney dwelling on that ancient unpleasantness, however. “Tommen is not Aegon the Unworthy. Have no fear, he will do as I bid him. I mean for Margaery to lose her head, not you.”
That gave him pause. “Her maidenhead, you mean?”
“That too. Assuming she has one still.” (aFfC, Cersei IV)

Except Margaery is not taking the bait and Margaery never meets Ser Osney without being in company.

“She likes his face. She touched his scars two days ago, he told me. ‘What woman gave you these?’ she asked. Osney never said it was a woman, but she knew. Might be someone told her. She’s always touching him when they talk, he says. Straightening the clasp on his cloak, brushing back his hair, and like that. One time at the archery butts she had him show her how to hold a longbow, so he had to put his arms around her. Osney tells her bawdy jests, and she laughs and comes back with ones that are even bawdier. No, she wants him, that’s plain, but . . .” […] “They are never alone. The king’s with them most all the time, and when he’s not, there’s someone else. Two of her ladies share her bed, different ones every night. Two others bring her breakfast and help her dress. She prays with her septa, reads with her cousin Elinor, sings with her cousin Alla, sews with her cousin Megga. When she’s not off hawking with Janna Fossoway and Merry Crane, she’s playing come-into-my-castle with that little Bulwer girl. She never goes riding but she takes a tail, four or five companions and a dozen guards at least. And there’s always men about her, even in the Maidenvault.”
“Men.” That was something. That had possibilities. “What men are these, pray tell?”
Ser Osmund shrugged. “Singers. She’s a fool for singers and jugglers and such. Knights, come round to moon over her cousins. Ser Tallad’s the worst, Osney says. That big oaf don’t seem to know if it’s Elinor or Alla he wants, but he knows he wants her awful bad. The Redwyne twins come calling too. Slobber brings flowers and fruit, and Horror’s taken up the lute. To hear Osney tell it, you could make a sweeter sound strangling a cat. The Summer Islander’s always underfoot as well.” (aFfC, Cersei V)

So, there is no access to Margaery, not even when she goes outside the courtyard.

A little foster brother might be just what Tommen needs to wean him away from Margaery and her hens. […] She was forever inviting him to accompany her and her hens on their adventures, and the boy was forever pleading with his mother for leave to go along. The queen had given her consent a few times, if only to allow Ser Osney to spend a few more hours in Margaery’s company. For all the good it has done. Osney has proved a grievous disappointment. (aFfC, Cersei VI)

Such wretched weather was enough to discourage even the little queen. Instead of riding with her hens and their retinue of guardsmen and admirers, she spent all day in the Maidenvault with her hens, listening to the Blue Bard sing. (aFfC, Cersei VIII)

George solves Margaery going outside of the castle and staying safe in comparison to the chicks in Reyneart’s tale, by having Lady Merryweather explain that Margaery’s handmaidens are her castle walls, her courtyard.

“Margaery is too shrewd to be caught so easily,” said Lady Merryweather. “Her women are her castle walls. They sleep with her, dress her, pray with her, read with her, sew with her. When she is not hawking or riding she is playing come-into-my-castle with little Alysanne Bulwer. Whenever men are about, her septa will be with her, or her cousins.”
“She must rid herself of her hens sometime,” the queen insisted. (aFfC, Cersei IX)

But when Cersei learns that Margaery intends to visit Baelor’s Sept – the fox’s burrow – on the day that men and grown women are barred from it, she sees her chance. On Maiden’s Day, Margaery will enter the fox’s den, without any guards, her brother allegedly dying of burns at Dragonstone and her father Mace Tyrell far away besieging Storm’s End.

Fast and purify . . . oh, for Maiden’s Day. It had been years since Cersei had been required to observe that particular holy day. Thrice wed, yet she still would have us believe she is a maid. Demure in white, the little queen would lead her hens to Baelor’s Sept to light tall white candles at the Maiden’s feet and hang parchment garlands about her holy neck. A few of her hens, at least. On Maiden’s Day widows, mothers, and whores alike were barred from the septs, along with men, lest they profane the sacred songs of innocence. Only virgin maids could . . .  (aFfC, Cersei IX)

Margaery and her fellow hens are captured and apprehended outside of the Red Keep, after Cersei sent Osney Kettleback to “confess” his affair with Margaery and her cousins to the High Sparrow, while the Blue Bard sings a song accusing many of the courtiers visiting and hunting Margaery and her hens all thet ime. By the end of aDwD the following are still accused in relation to Margaery’s alleged treason: Margaery (of great repute), her cousins Elinor and Megga, Ser Tallad the Tall, Jalabhar Xho, Hamish the Harper (already dead), Hugh Clifton, Mark Mullendore, Bayard Norcross, Lambert Turnberry, and the Blue Bard. These are exactly eleven people.

Now while Cersei refers to them as “hens”, of course the Tyrell sigil is not that of a chicken nor of the others. But notice the response of Harys Swyft when the delegation of the Septas recount their physical findings of the examination of Margaery’s maidenhood.

At the council table Harys Swyft gasped, and Grand Maester Pycelle turned away. […] Harys Swyft appeared dazed. He stumbled at the door and might have fallen if Aurane Waters had not caught him by the arm. […] Ser Harys Swyft was so pale and damp he looked about to faint. “When word of this reaches Lord Tyrell, his fury will know no bounds. There will be blood in the streets . . .” The knight of the yellow chicken, Cersei mused. You ought to take a worm for your sigil, ser. A chicken is too bold for you. (aFfC, Cersei X)

Swyft is featured somewhat significantly in only two of Cersei chapters of aFfC, despite the fact that she made him her Hand: during the Small Council chapter Cersei IV, mostly to ask questions, and the one where the small council learns of Margaery’s arrest. Though he is no relation to any of the Tyrells of course – in fact, he is Lancel’s grandfather – his emotional responses to these accusations is almost that of a father, or indeed Cantecleir. And his sigil is not that of a yellow chicken, but a blue “rooster” on a yellow field.

And for her Hand, Ser Harys Swyft. Soft, bald, and obsequious, Swyft had an absurd little white puff of beard where most men had a chin. The blue bantam rooster of his House was worked across the front of his plush yellow doublet in beads of lapis. Over that he wore a mantle of blue velvet decorated with a hundred golden hands. Ser Harys had been thrilled by his appointment, too dim to realize that he was more hostage than Hand. His daughter was her uncle’s wife, and Kevan loved his chinless lady, flat-chested and chicken-legged as she was. So long as she had Ser Harys in hand, Kevan Lannister must needs think twice about opposing her. To be sure, a good-father is not the ideal hostage, but better a flimsy shield than none. (aFfC, Cersei IV)

The Lambs

Overall the story of Reynaert the Fox starts with a feudal society in harmony and peace, where solely the fox is the criminal. King Noble listens to his vassals, summons the fox for his crimes to be put on trial and has his vassals as fellow judges. He wants convincing evidence for the fox’s crimes and only targets Reynaert. Ned Stark’s scene ordering the arrest of the Mountain as Hand with kingly power in response to the Riverland supplicants is an example on such feudal workings of justice. Once the fox, however, mentions the treasure to King Noble, the lion takes Reynaert aside and forgives all his crimes without conferring with his vassals. Here, the king breaks the feudal contract for his own gain and makes enemies of his vassals who have been misused and abused by the fox, which is what we see Cersei doing.

While King Noble colludes with Reynaert, he orders Belin the ram to help Reynaert get the attributes he needs to start his pilgrimage to Rome. Reynaert manages to persuade the ram and Cuwaert the hare to accompany him part of the way. He invites the hare into his home and kills him, while leaving Belin the ram to wait outside. Then he sends Belin back to court with a letter in a bag and advizes Belin to claim authorship of the letter. Belin does so, but when the bag is opened it contains Cuwaert’s head. The innocent and unwitting Belin therefore proclaimed himself to be the murderer of Cuwaert. Finally, King Noble realizes that he was conned by Reyneart into making an enemy of his mightiest barons. Eventually, the leopard Fyrapeel reconciles King Noble with his two barons, for a price: both the bear and the wolf are forever allowed to pursue and kill all members and descendants of Belin’s and Reynaert’s families. This restores the peace, but at the cost of a broken feudalism and thus justice, as now all rams and lambs and any fox are forever outlawed. All can be hunted and killed without repercussion.

house_florent_rambtonWe witness two ram related houses going near extinct. In Mirror Mirror – Behind the Mirror, we pointed out Lord Guncer Sunglass’s demise after Stannis allows the queen’s men to destroy the sept of Dragonstone. But he was not the sole burned victim here, and at least his brother managed to sail for Volantis. But in the same quotes, Ser Hubard Rambton, whose house has a ram’s head for sigil, attempted to protect the sept alongside his three sons. He and one son died in the fight, the other two sons were burned at the stake alongside Lord Sunglass. So, here we have pious rams being killed, by queen’s men and later on the orders of Sylese herself. House Florent’s sigil is that of a fox-head surrounded by blue flowers. So the noble King Stannis, through the fox, got his rams and his descendants killed.

But then you have a Queen-regent and lioness who ends up getting House Stokeworth near extinct. The sigil of House Stokeworth is that of a lamb holding a chalice. Cersei is responsible in two ways. Firstly, she arranges Bronn to wed simple-minded Lollys Stokeworth who was pregnant after the gang rape during the riot in aCoK. Cersei did this to deprive Tyrion from an ally. But in aFfC, Bronn becomes a problem. He hires four upjumped sellswords and names Lollys’s son, a bastard, Tyrion Tanner. And the first of deadly mishaps befall the Stokeworths: someone tampered with Lady Tanda’s saddle girth.

“Sweet Falyse,” she exclaimed, kissing the woman’s cheek, “and brave Ser Balman. I was so distraught when I heard about your dear, dear mother. How fares our Lady Tanda?”
Lady Falyse looked as if she were about to cry. “Your Grace is good to ask. Mother’s hip was shattered by the fall, Maester Frenken says. He did what he could. Now we pray, but . . .”
Pray all you like, she will still be dead before the moon turns. Women as old as Tanda Stokeworth did not survive a broken hip. “I shall add my prayers to your own,” said Cersei. “Lord Qyburn tells me that Tanda was thrown from her horse.”
“Her saddle girth burst whilst she was riding,” said Ser Balman Byrch. “The stableboy should have seen the strap was worn. He has been chastised.” (aFfC, Cersei V)

Three Cersei chapters later, the news is that she died of a chill in the chest brought on by her broken hip. Fearing that Bronn might turn against her after all, Cersei suggests Falyse’s husband to ensure Bronn gets killed in a hunting accident. And since Ser Balman is slow on the uptake, we can therefore conclude that Bronn had his upjumped sellswords arrange Lady Tanda’s saddle girth was so “worn”.

Cersei let her hand shake. “A child’s name is a small thing . . . but insolence unpunished breeds rebellion. And this man Bronn has been gathering sellswords to him, Qyburn has told me.”
“He has taken four knights into his household,” said Falyse.
Ser Balman snorted. “My good wife flatters them, to call them knights. They’re upjumped sellswords, with not a thimble of chivalry to be found amongst the four of them.”
“As I feared. Bronn is gathering swords for the dwarf. May the Seven save my little son. The Imp will kill him as he killed his brother.” She sobbed. “My friends, I put my honor in your hands . . . but what is a queen’s honor against a mother’s fears?”
“Say on, Your Grace,” Ser Balman assured her. “Your words shall ne’er leave this room.”
Cersei reached across the table and gave his hand a squeeze. “I . . . I would sleep more easily of a night if I were to hear that Ser Bronn had suffered a . . . a mishap . . . whilst hunting, perhaps.”
Ser Balman considered a moment. “A mortal mishap?”
No, I desire you to break his little toe. She had to bite her lip. My enemies are everywhere and my friends are fools. “I beg you, ser,” she whispered, “do not make me say it . . .”
“I understand.” Ser Balman raised a finger.
A turnip would have grasped it quicker. “You are a true knight indeed, ser. The answer to a frightened mother’s prayers.” Cersei kissed him. “Do it quickly, if you would. Bronn has only a few men about him now, but if we do not act, he will surely gather more.” (aFfC, Cersei V)

Except, Cersei’s plan backfires.

Lady Falyse’s face was bruised and swollen, her eyes red from her tears. Her lower lip was broken, her clothing soiled and torn. “Gods be good,” Cersei said as she ushered her into the solar and closed the door. “What has happened to your face?”
Falyse did not seem to hear the question. “He killed him,” she said in a quavery voice. “Mother have mercy, he . . . he . . .” She broke down sobbing, her whole body trembling. (aFfC, Cersei VII)

Chivalrous Balman did not arrange for some hunting mishap as Cersei had hinted, but instead challenged Bronn to single combat, because “Bronn was no true knight,” and Balman believed he could unhorse him before killing him. Indeed, Bronn has a sellsword mentality, and instead of aiming the lance at Balman he drove the lance through the chest of Balman’s horse. Balman’s legs were crushed beneath his horse and Bronn made Balman confess (and he did) before putting a dagger in his eye. He then ordered Falyse to leave, acting like Lord Stokeworth. She ran straight to Cersei asking for help. But Cersei offers her to Qyburn for his dark work in the black cells.

The queen took Qyburn aside and told him of Ser Balman’s folly. “I cannot have Falyse spreading tales about the city. Her grief has made her witless. Do you still need women for your . . . work?”
“I do, Your Grace. The puppeteers are quite used up.”
“Take her and do with her as you will, then. But once she goes down into the black cells . . . need I say more?” (aFfC, Cersei VII)

Later, Cersei realizes it might have been better to help Falyse get rid of Bronn and make her Lady of Stokeworth, but while she is still alive, Qyburn admits the woman cannot even feed herself anymore.

“Is Lady Falyse still alive?”
“Alive, yes. Perhaps not entirely . . . comfortable.”
“I see.” Cersei considered a moment. “This man Bronn . . . I cannot say I like the notion of an enemy so close. His power all derives from Lollys. If we were to produce her elder sister . . .”
“Alas,” said Qyburn. “I fear that Lady Falyse is no longer capable of ruling Stokeworth. Or, indeed, of feeding herself. I have learned a great deal from her, I am pleased to say, but the lessons have not been entirely without cost. I hope I have not exceeded Your Grace’s instructions.”
“No.” Whatever she had intended, it was too late. There was no sense dwelling on such things. It is better if she dies, she told herself. (aFfC, Cersei VIII)

The appendix of aDwD confirms that Falyse died screaming in the black cells. This time it was not Bronn who got a lamb killed, but it happens on Cersei’s direct orders within the Red Keep, and to a woman who was an ally. Falyse may have been naive and her husband a fool, but Cersei’s callous willingness to let a woman be experimented on and tortured in her dungeons, while Falyse had shown absolute loyalty to her, sought her help in the dead of night without telling another soul is shocking. It is not even smart. Bronn is able to spread the tale himself, and it tactically would have been better to help Falyse become Lady of Stokeworth. Hence, imho it therefore makes Falyse’s ending the most depraved callous act of Cersei that completely undermines her credibility to be a ruler in a feudal society.

The Strong Counsel of Ellyn Reyne

But it is not only Cersei who fits the role of King Noble the lion who breaks the feudal contract. Tywin does the same in his dealing with the Reynes of Castamere, who end up with the role of the outlawed Reynaert and his descendants, and thus the foxes. Yes, their sigil is that of a Red Lion (for the general meaning of red in George’s writing see The trail of the Red Stallion), but the family name Reyne, the description of Castamere and the last Reyne standing, as well as the particulars of the downfall of House Reyne all nicely fit ‘Of Reynaert the Fox’ a bit too much to ignore.

Etymologically the fox’s name derives from Reginhard, or ‘strong counsel’, and this role in the Reyne backstory is taken by Ellyn Reyne, a strong-willed woman who wed into House Lannister with the ambition to become the Lady of Casterly Rock.

Tywald Lannister had long been betrothed to the Red Lion’s spirited young sister, Lady Ellyn. This strong-willed and hot-tempered maiden, who had for years anticipated becoming the Lady of Casterly Rock, was unwilling to forsake that dream. In the aftermath of her betrothed’s death, she persuaded his twin brother, Tion, to set aside his own betrothal to a daughter of Lord Rowan of Goldengrove and espouse her instead.
Lord Gerold, it is said, opposed this match, but grief and age and illness had left him a pale shadow of his former self, and in the end he gave way. In 235 AC, in a double wedding at Casterly Rock, Ser Tion Lannister took Ellyn Reyne to wife, whilst his younger brother Tytos wed Jeyne Marbrand, a daughter of Lord Alyn Marbrand of Ashemark.
Twice a widower, and ailing, Lord Gerold did not wed again, so after her marriage, Ellyn of House Reyne became the Lady of Casterly Rock in all but name. (tWoIaF – The Westerlands: House Lannister under the Dragons)

Notice how George portrays Ellyn as strong-willed and persuasive. She became an important influencer at Casterly Rock.

As her good-father retreated to his books and his bedchamber, Lady Ellyn held a splendid court, staging a series of magnificent tourneys and balls and filling the Rock with artists, mummers, musicians…and Reynes. Her brothers Roger and Reynard were ever at her side, and offices, honors, and lands were showered upon them, and upon her uncles, cousins, and nephews and nieces as well. Lord Gerold’s aged fool, an acerbic hunchback called Lord Toad, was heard to say, “Lady Ellyn must surely be a sorceress, for she has made it rain inside the Rock all year.” (tWoIaF – The Westerlands: House Lannister under the Dragons)

We learn of her brothers, Roger Reyne, but most importantly a brother named after that famous medieval fox – Reynard, who was said to be charming and cunning.

Roger Reyne, the Red Lion, was widely feared for his skill at arms; many considered him the deadliest sword in the westerlands. His brother, Ser Reynard, was as charming and cunning as Ser Roger was swift and strong. (tWoIaF – The Westerlands: House Lannister under the Dragons)

Unfortunately, Tion died in the fourth Blackfyre rebellion. The widow-law required the Lannisters to still have her live at the Rock with them, but her influence waned, but not because of Ellyn’s lack of trying.

The “Reign of the Reynes” was at an end. Lady Ellyn’s brothers soon departed Casterly Rock for Castamere, accompanied by many of the other Reynes. Lady Ellyn remained, but her influence dwindled, while that of Lady Jeyne grew. […] Beldon tells us that in 239 AC, Ellyn Reyne was accused of bedding Tytos Lannister, urging him to set aside his wife and marry her instead. However, young Tytos (then nineteen) found his brother’s widow so intimidating that he was unable to perform. Humiliated, he ran back to his wife to confess and beg her forgiveness.
Lady Jeyne was willing to pardon her young husband but was less forgiving of her goodsister, and did not hesitate to inform Lord Gerold of the incident. Furious, his lordship resolved to rid Casterly Rock of Ellyn Reyne for good and all by finding her a new husband. […] Within the fortnight, Ellyn Reyne was wed to Walderan Tarbeck, Lord of Tarbeck Hall, the florid fifty-five-year-old widowed lord of an ancient, honorable, but impoverished house. (tWoIaF – The Westerlands: House Lannister under the Dragons)

818px-House_Tarbeck.svgOf interest here, is that the sigil of House Tarbeck is a silver-blue seven pointed star on a silver-blue field. So, in House Tarbeck we have the star of the Faith of the Seven and the ice color-scheme of blue and silver. Hence, we get a conflation of ice, the Faith and foxes once more. This color scheme is also all over the text in The Stone City, the 1977 short story with the foxmen.

After Lord Gerold’s death, Tytos became Lord of Casterly Rock. He wanted to be loved and liked and therefore was too generous and too forgiving to his vassals. During these times Ellyn used her influence once more.

As the Reynes rose, so too did their close allies, the Tarbecks of Tarbeck Hall. After centuries of slow decline, this poor but ancient house had begun to flourish, thanks in large part to the new Lady Tarbeck, the former Ellyn Reyne. Though she herself remained unwelcome at the Rock, Lady Ellyn had contrived to extract large sums of gold from House Lannister through her brothers, for Lord Tytos found it very hard to refuse the Red Lion. Those funds she had used to restore the crumbling ruin that was Tarbeck Hall, rebuilding its curtain wall, strengthening its towers, and furnishing its keep in splendor to rival any castle in the west. (tWoIaF – The Westerlands: House Lannister under the Dragons)

But when Tytos’s heir, Tywin Lannister, returned from the War of the Ninepenny Kings, he acted independently from his father and demanded the lords of the Westerlands to pay back their debts and interests on the loans.

Lord Reyne reportedly laughed when his maester read him Ser Tywin’s edicts and counseled his friends and vassals to do nothing. Lord Walderan Tarbeck unwisely chose a different course. He rode to Casterly Rock to protest, confident in his ability to cow Lord Tytos and force him to rescind his son’s edicts. But he found himself facing Ser Tywin instead, who had him consigned to a dungeon.
With Lord Walderan in chains, Tywin Lannister no doubt expected the Tarbecks to yield. But Lady Tarbeck was quick to disabuse him of that notion. Instead that redoubtable woman sent forth her own knights and captured three Lannisters. Two of the captives were Lannisters of Lannisport, distant kin to the Lannisters of Casterly Rock, but the third was a young squire, Stafford Lannister, the eldest son and heir of Lord Tytos’s late brother, Ser Jason.
The resulting crisis drew Lord Tytos away from his wet nurse long enough to overrule his strong-willed heir. His lordship not only commanded that Lord Tarbeck be released, unharmed, but also went so far as to apologize to him and forgive him his debts.
To safeguard the exchange of hostages, Lord Tytos turned to Lady Tarbeck’s younger brother, Ser Reynard Reyne. The Red Lion’s formidable seat at Castamere was chosen to host the meet. Ser Tywin refused to attend, so it was Ser Kevan who returned Lord Walderan, whilst Lady Tarbeck herself delivered Stafford and his cousins. Lord Reyne feasted all the parties, and a great show of amity was staged, with Lannisters and Tarbecks toasting one another, exchanging gifts and kisses, and vowing to remain each other’s leal friends “through all eternity.” (tWoIaF – The Westerlands: House Lannister under the Dragons)

So, Ellyn Reyne may not have had the actual name Reynaert (only the Regin- part) nor the fox sigil, but her personality and influence at the time certainly could have earned her the name Reginhard. Her strong counsel and actions overcame her misfortunes time and time again, if it had not been for Tywin Lannister completely ignoring his lord father’s actions and decisions.

Tywin Lannister, who had not been present at the Red Lion’s feast, had never weakened in his resolve to bring these overmighty vassals to heel. Late in the year 261 AC, he sent ravens to Castamere and Tarbeck Hall, demanding that Roger and Reynard Reyne and Lord and Lady Tarbeck present themselves at Casterly Rock “to answer for your crimes.” The Reynes and Tarbecks chose defiance instead, as Ser Tywin surely knew they would. Both houses rose in open revolt, renouncing their fealty to Casterly Rock. So Tywin Lannister called the banners. He did not seek his lord father’s leave, nor even inform him of his intent, but rode forth himself with five hundred knights and three thousand men-at-arms and crossbowmen behind him. (tWoIaF – The Westerlands: House Lannister under the Dragons)

Here, we have the lion summoning the fox to court. And of course, the foxes refused and went in open rebellion. Lord Roger Reyne’s rebellion against House Lannister is a callback to Reyneart’s claim to King Noble that his brother intended to help King Noble’s ‘false’ allies usurp the king.

It can be argued that the Tarbecks and Reynes had invited this doom upon themselves by their bold choices before. However, Tywin breaks the feudal contract here. Peace had been established nor was Tywin lord over the Westerlands, and he had been in breach prior by imprisoning Lord Tarbeck.

The Lannister host descended so quickly [on House Tarbeck] that Lord Walderan’s vassals and supporters had no time to gather. […] In a short, brutal battle, the Tarbecks were broken and butchered. Lord Walderan Tarbeck and his sons were beheaded, together with his nephews and cousins, his daughters’ husbands, and any man who displayed the seven-pointed blue-and silver star upon his shield or surcoat to boast of Tarbeck blood. […] At their approach, Lady Ellyn Tarbeck closed her gates and sent forth ravens to Castamere, summoning her brothers. Trusting in her walls, Lady Tarbeck no doubt anticipated a long siege, but siege engines were readied within a day, and those walls proved little help when one great stone flew over them and brought down the castle’s aged keep. Lady Ellyn and her son Tion the Red died in the keep’s sudden collapse. (tWoIaF – The Westerlands: House Lannister under the Dragons)

Tywin further annihilates the feudal contract by killing all Tarbecks. He killed Lord Tarbeck, his sons, his nephews, cousins, the husbands of his daughters, any man sporting the sigil, Ellyn and her son. Her daughters were forced to join the Silent Sisters, and Ellyn’s grandson was likely murdered by Amory Lorch, or alternatively ended up as a bard in Essos. Not only Ellyn’s line went extinct, but the rest of House Reyne was also extinguished at Castamere. Her brother Lord Roger Reyne arrived too late to her aid at Tarbeck Hell and was outnumbered. Not even a surprise attack could prevent the Reynes from being defeated. Wounded and fleeing, Lord Reyne had to be carried back to Castamere, where Ser Reynard Reyne took command of the defences. This brings us to Castamere itself.

Like Casterly Rock, the seat of House Reyne had begun as a mine. Rich veins of gold and silver had made the Reynes near as wealthy as the Lannisters during the Age of Heroes; to defend their riches, they had raised curtain walls about the entrance to their mine, closed it with an oak-and-iron gate, and flanked it with a pair of stout towers. Keeps and halls had followed, but all the while the mineshafts had gone deeper and deeper, and when at last the gold gave out, they had been widened into halls and galleries and snug bedchambers, a warren of tunnels and a vast, echoing ballroom. To the ignorant eye, Castamere seemed a modest holding, a fit seat for a landed knight or small lord, but those who knew its secrets knew that nine-tenths of the castle was beneath the ground. (tWoIaF – The Westerlands: House Lannister under the Dragons)

Thus aside from the castle and curtain walls on the surface, Castamere was mostly an underground castle. The house of a fox is an underground burrow of vast tunnels with several exits and entrances. In English this is called a ‘foxhole’. In Dutch, however, it is called a ‘burcht’, which in English means ‘castle’. Castamere being fabled for having been a gold mine, and thus a treasure, but now long gone, is also a parallel to Reyneart’s lie about having a treasure buried at home.

Like a fox’s burrow, Castamere has several entrances and exits. Ser Reynard Reyne counted on this being his advantage, when he had his people take refuge inside. It would have been a suicidal nightmare to send an army into the tunnels in order to conquer Castamere.

It was to those deep chambers that the Reynes retreated now. Feverish and weak from loss of blood, the Red Lion was in no fit state to lead. Ser Reynard, his brother, assumed command in his stead. Less headstrong but more cunning than his brother, Reynard knew he did not have the men to defend the castle walls, so he abandoned the surface entirely to the foe and fell back beneath the earth. Once all his folk were safe inside the tunnels, Ser Reynard sent word to Ser Tywin above, offering terms. (tWoIaF – The Westerlands: House Lannister under the Dragons)

How much Tywin ignores feudal code and law is show by the fact that Tywin does not even sends a reply back to the other. Instead, Tywin took a much tried method to kill and flush a fox out of its burrow. From the moment that Tywin sent his summons, he had already decided he would completely annihilate these two houses and their people (castle and smallfolk), regarding them all as outlaws basically.

But Tywin Lannister did not honor Ser Reynard’s offer with a reply. Instead he commanded that the mines be sealed. With pick and axe and torch, his own miners brought down tons of stone and soil, burying the great gates to the mines until there was no way in and no way out. Once that was done, he turned his attention to the small, swift stream that fed the crystalline blue pool beside the castle from which Castamere took its name. It took less than a day to dam the stream and only two to divert it to the nearest mine entrance. The earth and stone that sealed the mine had no gaps large enough to allow a squirrel to pass, let alone a man…but the water found its way down. Ser Reynard had taken more than three hundred men, women, and children into the mines, it is said. Not a one emerged. A few of the guards assigned to the smallest and most distant of the mine entrances reported hearing faint screams and shouts coming from beneath the earth one night, but by daybreak the stones had gone silent once again. (tWoIaF – The Westerlands: House Lannister under the Dragons)

The sole difference is that hunters use fire to prevent a fox from using certain exits and goad him into escaping from the sole exit left, where the hunter waits to capture and kill him.

So, do not let the red lion sigil of House Reyne mislead you. Ellyn Reyne’s personality and influence, Ser Reynard Reyne’s name, Castamere’s construction and House Reyne’s fate enacted by the Great Lion of Casterly Rock, Tywin Lannister, all contain references to Reyneart the Fox, and the way real world foxes live and many were hunted like vermin.

In fact, both the Reynes and Lannisters may have a fox origin. In the Reach, some stories claim that Lann the Clever – who hoodwinked the Rock from the Casterlys – was a bastard son of Florys the Fox, a daughter of Garth Greenhand. She was the cleverest of Garth’s children. She was so clever that she managed to have three husbands who were unaware of it. Not only does that make Florys cunning, but secret bygamy is a classic red alert you may be dealing with a psychopath. The children of those three marriages are the founders of House Florent, House Ball and House Peake. House Lannister is a potential fourth bastard line from Florys the Fox. House Reyne was one of the first allies of House Lannister through marriage. The first King Loreon Lannister married a Lady Reyne. And since both houses date back to the Age of Heroes it is very likely that the Lannisters and Reynes intermarried several times after, with blood of Florys the Fox ending up in House Reyne.

Though the fate of the Rains of Castamere is known to us in some poetic general way since aSoS, we do not get the particulars of the backstory until tWoIaF, years after George inserted the Reynaert allusions in Cersei’s arc in aFfC. It stresses how important it is to George to allude to Reynearts as enemies in the arcs of ruling Lannister lions. And as we now already have two arcs with a trinity of Reynaerts, we therefore should expect a third plotline with a trinity of foxes who ultimately operate against Cersei’s interests. The fox-faced Shadrich and his two companions point to events in the Vale and Sansa’s arc being the third, as Blue-Eyed Wolf has argued.

Now, the question for the Cersei-Faith arc is whether the Faith will go the Reyne way in tWoW (like the show did in the season 6 finale) or that Cersei will. After all, the lion king Noble outlaws the foxes for eternity. But then we also have Maggy the Frog’s prophecy intertwined throughout Cersei’s aFfC arc, prophesying the death of her three children and her own death. The odds that Lannister lions will go extinct like the Reynes and Tarbecks did are low, when you have Lannisters of Lannisport, and a chance that Tyrion Lannister will survive the series. Still, it should be noted that George deliberately inserted a potential connection to the Lannisters being descendants of Florys the Fox. He has Cersei go through the same ordeal that Tywin put his father’s mistress through after Lord Tytos died.

Cersei had been a year old when her grandfather died. The first thing her father had done on his ascension was to expel his own father’s grasping, lowborn mistress from Casterly Rock. The silks and velvets Lord Tytos had lavished on her and the jewelry she had taken for herself had been stripped from her, and she had been sent forth naked to walk through the streets of Lannisport, so the west could see her for what she was.
Though she had been too young to witness the spectacle herself, Cersei had heard the stories growing up from the mouths of washerwomen and guardsmen who had been there. They spoke of how the woman had wept and begged, of the desperate way she clung to her garments when she was commanded to disrobe, of her futile efforts to cover her breasts and her sex with her hands as she hobbled barefoot and naked through the streets to exile. “Vain and proud she was, before,” she remembered one guard saying, “so haughty you’d think she’d forgot she come from dirt. Once we got her clothes off her, though, she was just another whore.” (aDwD, Cersei II)

This potentially hints that Cersei may end up going the way of Ellyn Reyne, her house literally or figuratively crumbling about her. Cersei’s Walk of Shame brings us to the last subsection of this essay.

The Naked Empress

Magali_Villeneuve_Walk_of_Shame
Walk of Shame, by Magali Villeneuve

Cersei ends up being thrown into a cell and is arrested for regicide, high treason, murder of the prior High Septon, adultery and fornication by the end of aFfC. Her arc in aDwD picks up where we left off, with Cersei working and attempting to manipulate the Septas and the High Sparrow in releasing her back to the Red Keep to be with her son, while she awaits hers and Margaery’s trial. She denies all charges, except those that will preserve her head, especially faced with the confessions of Osney Kettleback and the understanding (finally) that Lancel confessed all to the High Sparrow.The High Sparrow allows Cersei to return to the Red Keep, if she shows public penance for her fornication by performing a walk of atonement (dubbed the Walk of Shame) naked and head shaven through the streets of the capital. It is in this scene that a dozen mirror wearing Warrior’s Sons are to be her safekeeping escort and that George informs us that their armor acts like a mirror.

Their captain knelt before her. “Perhaps Your Grace will recall me. I am Ser Theodan the True, and His High Holiness has given me command of your escort. My brothers and I will see you safely through the city.” (aDwD, Cersei II)

We are only informed by George of the mirroring capacity of the Swords’ armor at this point, as this is the chapter where Cersei mentally and emotionally faces her mistakes (in as much as a narcissistic personality as Cersei is capable of): that she does not have the body of a goddess anymore, but a woman who bore three children and age, diet choices, nursing and gravity doing its work; that she is a mere mortal woman and physically no different than a common woman. George stresses Cersei facing certain truths in this chapter of past events and herself by having the captain of these escorting mirrors be nicknamed the True. Theodan is of House Wells originally, either of Dorne or the North. Both regions have a House Wells, but we have no confirmation which of the two Ser Theodian alludes to. Important here though is the immediate connection to the noun well. A well is a water source and could otherwise referred to as a pool or a pond. Both well and pools often have magical properties with fortune telling and truth seeing nymphs, Fates or norse norns. There are several scenes in which a character is told a truth from a woman emerging or swimming in a pool or well or pond. Remember that George compared the Others’ armor not just to a mirror but as a pond.

Theodan as name reminds us of King Theoden in Tolkien’s trilogy Lord of the Rings. For years he was fed lies by his servant Wormtongue, who actually was an agent of Saruman. It had turned Theoden in a fearful, indecisive man who grew suspicious of his own family. Gandalf manages to lift the spell, helping Theoden see true once more and regain his valor and bravery. Tolkien likely based the name Theoden on the old English word peoden, which means prince, king or leader. Once again, it ties George’s Ser Theodan the True to a character who is not blinded by lies anymore.

How much Cersei ultimately cannot face the truth about her mistakes towards others is figuratively revealed after she fell a first time via Ser Theodan the True. Cersei even forgot his name, and thus cannot recognnize the whole truth.

“Your Grace.” The captain of her escort stepped up beside her. Cersei had forgotten his name. “You must continue. The crowd is growing unruly.”
Yes, she thought. Unruly. “I am not afraid—”
“You should be.” He yanked at her arm, pulling her along beside him. She staggered down the hill—downward, ever downward—wincing with every step, letting him support her.

The truth yanks her forth, pulls her, and for a short moment, Cersei allows it for support, as truth makes her stagger and wince in pain. But when the truth cares not one jot that she is queen, and when she can see the Red Keep again, Cersei wrenches herself free from truth’s grasp. In the end she runs to the safety of lies again, foreshadowing the bloody trail Cersei is willing to leave behind in order to cling to false beliefs.

The knight wrenched at her arm again, as if she were some common serving wench. Has he forgotten who I am? She was the queen of Westeros; he had no right to lay rough hands on her. Near the bottom of the hill, the slope gentled and the street began to widen. Cersei could see the Red Keep again, shining crimson in the morning sun atop Aegon’s High Hill. I must keep walking. She wrenched free of Ser Theodan’s grasp. “You do not need to drag me, ser.” She limped on, leaving a trail of bloody footprints on the stones behind her.

And of course, Lancel is one of the Swords assigned to escort her.

Cersei’s gaze swept across the faces of the men behind [Ser Theodan]. And there he was: Lancel, her cousin, Ser Kevan’s son, who had once professed to love her, before he decided that he loved the gods more. My blood and my betrayer. She would not forget him. (aDwD, Cersei II)

As mirrors surrounding Cersei, the Warrior’s Sons do not function in the same way as it does with Areo Hotah’s POV – huge reveals – but instead function to make Cersei reflect back on the past and herself. Lancel is the first man she faces and reflects back on about the past in the face of mirrors. Here, she twists the truth as Lancel betraying her, incapable of recognizing how she might have wronged a young boy who she used as a tool for her own ends and discarded after. Next, she faces the spot where Ned Stark lost his head. We learn a few general details about Cersei’s plans and hopes at the time, and who worked out the terms (including Littlefinger). It is somewhat more truthful about the past, but Cersei puts all the blame on Joffrey.

It came to her suddenly that she had stood in this very spot before, on the day Lord Eddard Stark had lost his head. That was not supposed to happen. Joff was supposed to spare his life and send him to the Wall. Stark’s eldest son would have followed him as Lord of Winterfell, but Sansa would have stayed at court, a hostage. Varys and Littlefinger had worked out the terms, and Ned Stark had swallowed his precious honor and confessed his treason to save his daughter’s empty little head. I would have made Sansa a good marriage. A Lannister marriage. Not Joff, of course, but Lancel might have suited, or one of his younger brothers. Petyr Baelish had offered to wed the girl himself, she recalled, but of course that was impossible; he was much too lowborn. If Joff had only done as he was told, Winterfell would never have gone to war, and Father would have dealt with Robert’s brothers. Instead Joff had commanded that Stark’s head be struck off, and Lord Slynt and Ser Ilyn Payne had hastened to obey. It was just there, the queen recalled, gazing at the spot. Janos Slynt had lifted Ned Stark’s head by the hair as his life’s blood flowed down the steps, and after that there was no turning back. (aDwD, Cersei II)

If only Joff had done as he was told, but Cersei fails to recognize how she failed. She was the queen-regent, having the legal power, whereas Joff did not have any. She allowed Joff free reign. She raised and admired him to do as he please, nurturing his worst tendencies. She put him on the stage and allowed him to decide. Then we get Theoden the True dragging and supporting her towards the truth, which she frees herself from, before she reaches the bottom of Vysenia’s Hill. Right after a child exclaims she can’t be the queen, because she looks saggy like his mum, Cersei is met by those she failed and wronged, but without mentally recognizing her culpability, without ever voicing it in her head.

The queen began to see familiar faces. A bald man with bushy side-whiskers frowned down from a window with her father’s frown, and for an instant looked so much like Lord Tywin that she stumbled. A young girl sat beneath a fountain, drenched in spray, and stared at her with Melara Hetherspoon’s accusing eyes. She saw Ned Stark, and beside him little Sansa with her auburn hair and a shaggy grey dog that might have been her wolf. Every child squirming through the crowd became her brother Tyrion, jeering at her as he had jeered when Joffrey died. And there was Joff as well, her son, her firstborn, her beautiful bright boy with his golden curls and his sweet smile, he had such lovely lips, he … (aDwD, Cersei II)

She failed her father, killed Melara, betrayed Ned Stark who had given her a chance; Sansa who lost her wolf, because Cersei wanted some wolf dead to pay the price, guilty or not; and by not heeding Ned Stark’s offer to seek security for her children in Essos, Cersei got her eldest son killed. These are the implied mistakes, but a narcissist cannot admit to themselves that they were wrong. And neither can Cersei.

The sole mistake that she can admit to herself is agreeing to the Walk of Shame and the truth of age and altered appearance, but no more.

She did not feel beautiful, though. She felt old, used, filthy, ugly. There were stretch marks on her belly from the children she had borne, and her breasts were not as firm as they had been when she was younger. Without a gown to hold them up, they sagged against her chest. I should not have done this. I was their queen, but now they’ve seen, they’ve seen, they’ve seen. I should never have let them see. Gowned and crowned, she was a queen. Naked, bloody, limping, she was only a woman, not so very different from their wives, more like their mothers than their pretty little maiden daughters. What have I done?  (aDwD, Cersei II)

Not only Cersei is forced to face her reflection, the smallfolk too get to see the proud, vain queen-regent in a manner they have never before seen a queen: naked, stripped from all her symbolism, and without rich clothes hiding her imperfections. The smallfolk seeing Cersei naked and Cersei enduring her Walk of Atonement concludes with a similar truth as that of Christian Anderson’s fairytale The Emperor’s New Clothes.

Alasti_keiser,_Edward_von_Lõnguse_töö_Tartus
Edward von Lõnguse, graffiti by Tartus

In this tale, two weavers (conmen) claim to be able to make a magical garment that is only invisible to the stupid and illequippred. In truth they make no clothes at all, while both the emperor and those who serve him pretend to see the cloth and garments for fear of being outed as stupid. The emperor ends up parading through the city, stark naked, with nobody daring to state the obvious, except for a child blurting out that the Emperor is not wearing any clothes.

“That can’t be the queen,” a boy said, “she’s saggy as my mum.” (aDwD, Cersei II)

Truth comes from a child’s mouth. The cry of truth by the child is taken up by others until eventually the emperor realizes the truth of the scam. Nevertheless he continues his parade naked.

Septa Moelle moved up on the queen’s right. “This sinner has confessed her sins and begged for absolution and forgiveness. His High Holiness has commanded her to demonstrate her repentance by putting aside all pride and artifice and presenting herself as the gods made her before the good people of the city.”
Septa Scolera finished. “So now this sinner comes before you with a humble heart, shorn of secrets and concealments, naked before the eyes of gods and men, to make her walk of atonement.” (aDwD, Cersei II)

There is an obvious inversion of Anderson’s tale when George uses it in Cersei’s arc. The Emperor begins his  parade believing he wears clothes on that are only invisible to him. He learns the truth during his walk, but finds the dignity within himself to overcome his shame of being so stupid he could not see the clothes or later that he was conned. Cersei on the other hand starts out her walk, trying to keep her pride and head high, fully knowing she is naked.

She bared herself in one smooth, unhurried motion, as if she were back in her own chambers disrobing for her bath with no one but her bedmaids looking on. […] It took all her strength of will not to try and hide herself with her hands, as her grandfather’s whore had done. Her fingers tightened into fists, her nails digging into her palms. They were looking at her, all the hungry eyes. But what were they seeing? I am beautiful, she reminded herself. […] She had to move. Naked, shorn, barefoot, Cersei made a slow descent down the broad marble steps. […] She held her chin high, as a queen should, and her escort fanned out ahead of her. (aDwD, Cersei II)

But it ends up on her knees, shamed and vulnerable, running towards the castle from prying eyes, shamed.

And then there was no stopping the tears. They burned down the queen’s cheeks like acid. Cersei gave a sharp cry, covered her nipples with one arm, slid her other hand down to hide her slit, and began to run, shoving her way past the line of Poor Fellows, crouching as she scrambled crab-legged up the hill. Partway up she stumbled and fell, rose, then fell again ten yards farther on. The next thing she knew she was crawling, scrambling uphill on all fours like a dog as the good folks of King’s Landing made way for her, laughing and jeering and applauding her. (aDwD, Cersei II)

The Emperor reconciles himself with the fact that now all his subjects know he is a human like them. Like a narcissist, Cersei cannot, nor can she ultimately recognize her responsibilities into how she wronged others. Cersei breaks, not because of the vision of Maggy foretelling the death of her children, but instead how she will be cast down by a younger and more beautiful queen, and therefore reducing her to the Evil Queen of Snowwhite.

And suddenly the hag was there, standing in the crowd with her pendulous teats and her warty greenish skin, leering with the rest, with malice shining from her crusty yellow eyes. “Queen you shall be,” she hissed, “until there comes another, younger and more beautiful, to cast you down and take all you hold most dear.” (aDwD, Cersei II)

So, in Cersei’s Walk of Shame we have a subverted Emperor’s New Clothes tale, especially since Cersei does end up in a whole new style choice of her wardrobe in aDwD’s epilogue.

The queen was dressed as modestly as any matron, in a dark brown gown that buttoned up to her throat and a hooded green mantle that covered her shaved head. Before her walk she would have flaunted her baldness beneath a golden crown. (aDwD, Epilogue)

The story does not originate with Anderson, however. There is also a 13th and 14th century Indian and Spanish version respectively of this fairytale, but the meaning of the invisible clothes varies. The Spanish Tales of Count Lucanor has a source version where the tailors claim they can make clothing that is only invisible to a man who is not the son of his father. The Indian tale has the same implication. Anderson altered it to to focus on pride and vanity rather than adulterous paternity. In the figure of Cersei we have both – on the surface her vanity and pride ends up a smoking rubble at the end of the walk, but throughout one of the jeers that people throw at her, aside from whore is brotherfucker. The implication that her children are illigitemate is a constant subtext during her Walk of Shame.

Anderson made the decision to alter the meaning of the clothes and its climax with the child crying out the truth, when the tale was ready to go to print. Many theories exist what inspired Anderson. One of these is how he himself as a child once went to see a parade of King Frederick VI and exclaimed, “Oh, he’s nothing more than a human being!”

Because of the inversion, George humanizes Cersei’s appearance, but mentally maps out her narcissistic inability to face the truth when she has her vision of Ned Stark, Sansa, the wolf, Tywin, Tyrion and Joffrey. He also implies she is stupid, ill-equipped to be a ruler and that the king, her son, is illigitemate. The reason why the timing of the inversion of the Emperor’s New Clothes tale matches so well with the previous Reyneart arc of aFfC is not only because the Faith’s foxes managed to trick her, but she broke the feudal contract in every way possible, including with her allies. Feudal societies have kings and queens. Post-feudal societies have emperors and empresses. Cersei behaves as if she has the might of an empress, while she lives in a society where she is mightily dependent on the Faith’s recognition and her vassals supporting her military. Clothes make the woman, or not.

Suggested Reading

Introduction “Of Reynaert the Fox”, edited by Andre Bouwman and Bart Besamusca, English translation of the middle-Dutch “Van den Vos Reynaerde” by Thea Summerfield, Amsterdam University Press, 2009.

The Stone City, GRRM, 1977, transcribed online by The Fattest Leech, audio-read by Martin Serur on youtube, reviewed by Preston Jacobs in his youtube book club, easily found as one of the short stories in GRRM’s collection book Dreamsongs Part 1, The Light of Distant Stars, 2003

A Song for Lya, GRRM, 1974, easily found as one of the short stories in GRRM’s collection book Dreamsongs Part 1, The Light of Distant Stars, 2003

Seven Times Never Kill Man, GRRM, 1974, easily found as one of the short stories in GRRM’s collection book Dreamsongs Part 1, The Light of Distant Stars, 2003, quotes discussing Bakkalon of Seven Times Never Kill Man by The Fattest Leech.