Post by Some Pig No Doubt on Mar 14, 2016 16:57:03 GMT
Spinoff from The White Files.
Was rereading the chapter to pull some quotes for a response in the other thread, when a couple of different things jumped out at me.
First:
Aggo was back next. The southwest was barren and burnt, he swore. He had found the ruins of two more cities, smaller than Vaes Tolorro but otherwise the same. One was warded by a ring of skulls mounted on rusted iron spears, so he dared not enter, but he had explored the second for as long as he could. He showed Dany an iron bracelet he had found, set with a uncut fire opal the size of her thumb. There were scrolls as well, but they were dry and crumbling and Aggo had left them where they lay.
Iron bracelet? Ring of skulls on iron spears? Crumbling scrolls?
Map. Note the location of the two dead cities and proximity to Slaver's Bay. I have no idea if this is related at all, but there was a mention in Dance about how the old Ghiscari custom was to return the dead to their families so that they could inter the bones in crypts beneath the home. Anyway, lots of connection here to First Men practices...I have to wonder if this is their place of origin.
Second:
"As my queen commands." Ser Jorah frowned. "My home . . . you must understand that to understand the rest. Bear Island is beautiful, but remote. Imagine old gnarled oaks and tall pines, flowering thornbushes, grey stones bearded with moss, little creeks running icy down steep hillsides. The hall of the Mormonts is built of huge logs and surrounded by an earthen palisade."
This description is....familiar.
It's followed by:
Ser Jorah nodded. "By then my father had taken the black, so I was Lord of Bear Island in my own right. I had no lack of marriage offers, but before I could reach a decision Lord Balon Greyjoy rose in rebellion against the Usurper, and Ned Stark called his banners to help his friend Robert."
So Jorah's Glover bride dies after a ten year marriage - he begins looking for a new wife but is interrupted by Balon's uprising in 289. Jeor was already in the NW and became LC around that time, so that had to have occurred 288-289ish (wiki has it as 288)....which would fit with Mance's recollection of coming to Winterfell with LC Qorgyle and seeing Jon as a young boy.
OK, help me out here. This is going to be very stream-of-consciousness so be warned.
The Wiki (yeah yeah) notes LC Qorgyle as holding office from 283-288...so from the end of the Rebellion until Jeor takes over.
There is mention in the series of JORAH fighting during the Rebellion, but I don't recall anything about JEOR being involved. The Wiki entry assumes that Jeor had already joined the NW at the time of the Rebellion - he joined and "rose quickly through the ranks" to become LC only a few years into it.
This may or may not be correct - it didn't take Jon 5-6 years to become LC, after all - but one thing is for sure: Jeor was still Lord of Bear Island when he married Jorah off to the Glover girl in ~279, but was LC of the Night's Watch when the Glover girl died in ~289. Ergo, somewhere in a span of 10 years Jeor Mormont opted to give up lands and title and go live out his life in the ass end of nowhere for absolutely no reason known to anyone.
Now, a few random things that may not be so random:
Dany's memories of the house with the red door.
"I know this room, she thought. She remembered those great wooden beams and the carved animal faces that adorned them."
"A little girl ran barefoot toward a big house with a red door."
"She could smell home, she could see it, there, just beyond the door, green fields and great stone houses and arms to keep her warm, there."
Dany's memories of Willem Darry.
A great grey BEAR of a man
half-blind
He had a gruff, kind voice and big wrinkled hands, soft as old leather.
Longclaw
Supposedly the ancestral sword of House Mormont
Valyrian steel that has been in their possession for 500 years....this means pre-Doom.
How/where did this tiny vassal house on a remote island of the North get it?
Bastard/hand-and-a-half sword - Valyrian steel swords in Westeros are themselves pretty rare, but I'm guessing bastard swords are even MOAR rare. In fact, series-wide, we only know of one other.
So despite trying to impress his moneygrubbing second wife with gold and jewels and then later selling everything but the clothes on his back to buy her happiness, Jorah then leaves behind this very rare and very valuable sword when he flees to Lys with the little woman. Seems legit.
Oh, and then the sister of the man who has now abdicated leadership of House Mormont entirely and forever, the sister who is now Lord/Lady of House Mormont in her own right, returns the damn sword to him at Castle Black instead of keeping it to pass down to one of her bear-warrior daughters who deserves to wield it.?
And THEN, after squirreling this sword away after X years because he just can't bear to look at it, LC Jeor pulls it out of Castle Black storage, cleans it up, and gives it to his new personally-selected steward??
Jorah himself
Jorah is a seething mass of contradiction all on his own.
He takes over as Lord for his dad, who joins the NW for nogoodfuckingreason
There's the creepy parallel of the tourney where he won Lynesse's heart as champion, mirroring the Rhaegar/Lyanna thing if you're an ardent RLJer.
Then he gets in dutch with House Stark after selling some poachers to Tyroshi slavers. (Again, Tyrosh, sleeper cell of all things conspiratorial in ASOIAF.)
He goes into exile in the free cities with his Hightower wife, a wife who happens to be the niece of the former LC of the Kingsguard.
He ends up in the service to the guy who just so happens to be fronting the last Targaryens, and becomes right-hand man to the daughter.
He talks constantly about Rhaegar Targaryen - like he knew him personally - being this awesome guy and great honorable leader and all that, despite having fought on the side of the Rebels during the Rebellion.
Other Stuff
Timing things.
Jeor joins the NW - or simply falls off the face of the planet - around the time or shortly after the time of his son's victory over the throne.
Meanwhile, his son assumes lordship of this remote land with trees and fields and bears upon which sits their castle that is "no more than a wooden longhall".
Jorah stays holed up there until his unknown, unnamed wife dies of pregnancy complications in approximately 288-289.
Jorah goes off to fight in the Greyjoy Rebellion shortly after, then meets his new golddigger southron wife at a celebration tourney.
He brings her from Lannisport to Bear Island, and we get this:
"I lived for her smiles, so I sent all the way to Oldtown for a new cook, and brought a harper from Lannisport. Goldsmiths, jewelers, dressmakers, whatever she wanted I found for her, but it was never enough. Bear Island is rich in bears and trees, and poor in aught else. I built a fine ship for her and we sailed to Lannisport and Oldtown for festivals and fairs, and once even to Braavos, where I borrowed heavily from the money-lenders."
So Jorah is basically importing everything under the damn sun for Lynesse, and sailing all over the place, including the Free Cities....like Braavos.
Braavos, of course, is where Dany and Viserys are supposedly hanging out with the great bear of a man Ser Willem in the house with the red door, with green fields and stone houses and the lemon tree outside her window.
However, Ser Willem dies of his wasting sickness when Dany is about five, which would be ~289 depending on when you think her nameday is, and she and Viserys are chased out of the house by the servants and sent on the run in the Free Cities - sailing from Braavos to Myr, Myr to Tyrosh, etc. So Dany is abandoned by Willem Darry about the same time as Jorah brings home his new high-maintenance wife and Jeor becomes LC of the NW.
Then, of course, Jorah invokes the wrath of Ned Stark now and forevermore by selling some "poachers" to TYROSHI slavers...and Ned is so incensed by this for some reason that he bears a grudge and wants Jorah's head on a plate for it a decade later. The only other time we see Ned get equally incensed about something is when Robert puts the hit out on Dany.
Dany's Valyrian is peppered with the accent of Tyrosh.
Jeor Mormont puts lemon in his beer every day.
I will try to lay this out a bit better after lunch.
Was rereading the chapter to pull some quotes for a response in the other thread, when a couple of different things jumped out at me.
First:
Aggo was back next. The southwest was barren and burnt, he swore. He had found the ruins of two more cities, smaller than Vaes Tolorro but otherwise the same. One was warded by a ring of skulls mounted on rusted iron spears, so he dared not enter, but he had explored the second for as long as he could. He showed Dany an iron bracelet he had found, set with a uncut fire opal the size of her thumb. There were scrolls as well, but they were dry and crumbling and Aggo had left them where they lay.
Iron bracelet? Ring of skulls on iron spears? Crumbling scrolls?
Map. Note the location of the two dead cities and proximity to Slaver's Bay. I have no idea if this is related at all, but there was a mention in Dance about how the old Ghiscari custom was to return the dead to their families so that they could inter the bones in crypts beneath the home. Anyway, lots of connection here to First Men practices...I have to wonder if this is their place of origin.
Second:
"As my queen commands." Ser Jorah frowned. "My home . . . you must understand that to understand the rest. Bear Island is beautiful, but remote. Imagine old gnarled oaks and tall pines, flowering thornbushes, grey stones bearded with moss, little creeks running icy down steep hillsides. The hall of the Mormonts is built of huge logs and surrounded by an earthen palisade."
This description is....familiar.
It's followed by:
Ser Jorah nodded. "By then my father had taken the black, so I was Lord of Bear Island in my own right. I had no lack of marriage offers, but before I could reach a decision Lord Balon Greyjoy rose in rebellion against the Usurper, and Ned Stark called his banners to help his friend Robert."
So Jorah's Glover bride dies after a ten year marriage - he begins looking for a new wife but is interrupted by Balon's uprising in 289. Jeor was already in the NW and became LC around that time, so that had to have occurred 288-289ish (wiki has it as 288)....which would fit with Mance's recollection of coming to Winterfell with LC Qorgyle and seeing Jon as a young boy.
OK, help me out here. This is going to be very stream-of-consciousness so be warned.
The Wiki (yeah yeah) notes LC Qorgyle as holding office from 283-288...so from the end of the Rebellion until Jeor takes over.
There is mention in the series of JORAH fighting during the Rebellion, but I don't recall anything about JEOR being involved. The Wiki entry assumes that Jeor had already joined the NW at the time of the Rebellion - he joined and "rose quickly through the ranks" to become LC only a few years into it.
This may or may not be correct - it didn't take Jon 5-6 years to become LC, after all - but one thing is for sure: Jeor was still Lord of Bear Island when he married Jorah off to the Glover girl in ~279, but was LC of the Night's Watch when the Glover girl died in ~289. Ergo, somewhere in a span of 10 years Jeor Mormont opted to give up lands and title and go live out his life in the ass end of nowhere for absolutely no reason known to anyone.
Now, a few random things that may not be so random:
Dany's memories of the house with the red door.
"I know this room, she thought. She remembered those great wooden beams and the carved animal faces that adorned them."
"A little girl ran barefoot toward a big house with a red door."
"She could smell home, she could see it, there, just beyond the door, green fields and great stone houses and arms to keep her warm, there."
Dany's memories of Willem Darry.
A great grey BEAR of a man
half-blind
He had a gruff, kind voice and big wrinkled hands, soft as old leather.
Longclaw
Supposedly the ancestral sword of House Mormont
Valyrian steel that has been in their possession for 500 years....this means pre-Doom.
How/where did this tiny vassal house on a remote island of the North get it?
Bastard/hand-and-a-half sword - Valyrian steel swords in Westeros are themselves pretty rare, but I'm guessing bastard swords are even MOAR rare. In fact, series-wide, we only know of one other.
So despite trying to impress his moneygrubbing second wife with gold and jewels and then later selling everything but the clothes on his back to buy her happiness, Jorah then leaves behind this very rare and very valuable sword when he flees to Lys with the little woman. Seems legit.
Oh, and then the sister of the man who has now abdicated leadership of House Mormont entirely and forever, the sister who is now Lord/Lady of House Mormont in her own right, returns the damn sword to him at Castle Black instead of keeping it to pass down to one of her bear-warrior daughters who deserves to wield it.?
And THEN, after squirreling this sword away after X years because he just can't bear to look at it, LC Jeor pulls it out of Castle Black storage, cleans it up, and gives it to his new personally-selected steward??
Jorah himself
Jorah is a seething mass of contradiction all on his own.
He takes over as Lord for his dad, who joins the NW for nogoodfuckingreason
There's the creepy parallel of the tourney where he won Lynesse's heart as champion, mirroring the Rhaegar/Lyanna thing if you're an ardent RLJer.
Then he gets in dutch with House Stark after selling some poachers to Tyroshi slavers. (Again, Tyrosh, sleeper cell of all things conspiratorial in ASOIAF.)
He goes into exile in the free cities with his Hightower wife, a wife who happens to be the niece of the former LC of the Kingsguard.
He ends up in the service to the guy who just so happens to be fronting the last Targaryens, and becomes right-hand man to the daughter.
He talks constantly about Rhaegar Targaryen - like he knew him personally - being this awesome guy and great honorable leader and all that, despite having fought on the side of the Rebels during the Rebellion.
Other Stuff
Timing things.
Jeor joins the NW - or simply falls off the face of the planet - around the time or shortly after the time of his son's victory over the throne.
Meanwhile, his son assumes lordship of this remote land with trees and fields and bears upon which sits their castle that is "no more than a wooden longhall".
Jorah stays holed up there until his unknown, unnamed wife dies of pregnancy complications in approximately 288-289.
Jorah goes off to fight in the Greyjoy Rebellion shortly after, then meets his new golddigger southron wife at a celebration tourney.
He brings her from Lannisport to Bear Island, and we get this:
"I lived for her smiles, so I sent all the way to Oldtown for a new cook, and brought a harper from Lannisport. Goldsmiths, jewelers, dressmakers, whatever she wanted I found for her, but it was never enough. Bear Island is rich in bears and trees, and poor in aught else. I built a fine ship for her and we sailed to Lannisport and Oldtown for festivals and fairs, and once even to Braavos, where I borrowed heavily from the money-lenders."
So Jorah is basically importing everything under the damn sun for Lynesse, and sailing all over the place, including the Free Cities....like Braavos.
Braavos, of course, is where Dany and Viserys are supposedly hanging out with the great bear of a man Ser Willem in the house with the red door, with green fields and stone houses and the lemon tree outside her window.
However, Ser Willem dies of his wasting sickness when Dany is about five, which would be ~289 depending on when you think her nameday is, and she and Viserys are chased out of the house by the servants and sent on the run in the Free Cities - sailing from Braavos to Myr, Myr to Tyrosh, etc. So Dany is abandoned by Willem Darry about the same time as Jorah brings home his new high-maintenance wife and Jeor becomes LC of the NW.
Then, of course, Jorah invokes the wrath of Ned Stark now and forevermore by selling some "poachers" to TYROSHI slavers...and Ned is so incensed by this for some reason that he bears a grudge and wants Jorah's head on a plate for it a decade later. The only other time we see Ned get equally incensed about something is when Robert puts the hit out on Dany.
Dany's Valyrian is peppered with the accent of Tyrosh.
Jeor Mormont puts lemon in his beer every day.
I will try to lay this out a bit better after lunch.
