AFFC 34: Cat of the Canals
Jun 1, 2016 11:26:53 GMT
Ser Duncan, Some Pig No Doubt, and 2 more like this
Post by Weasel Pie on Jun 1, 2016 11:26:53 GMT
Melifeather will be tackling this chapter for her excellent project, but asked if anyone wanted to begin a re-read. I've happily obliged because it's possible there are some clues here about Bear Island and the mystery of the Mormonts.
At first re-read, this chapter is resoundingly about Bael the Bard/Mance Rayder, Lyanna/Ashara, and Mance being glamoured, along with a smattering of other themes.
Arya is in Braavos posing as Cat, a girl from King's Landing, who is living with the cockle-seller Brusco and his family, which includes his daughters Brea and Talea.
We learn Arya has been having wolf dreams, and appears to be the pack leader. Obvs a nod to Nymeria and Arya's warg connection to her direwolf.
And we learn about her other dream, which seems to be about Arya's arrival at the Twins coinciding with the Red Wedding. What's crazy about this is that, although on the face of it, we as readers know that it was Sandor Clegane (who has a dog's helm) who kept Arya from trying to find her mother, it was her brother Robb that she saw with the dog's wolf's head. Hmmm. Food for thought.
If this is a parallel or conflation with another story, could it be a warg preventing someone from saving a woman who is being murdered?
Then Cat gives us this. 14 year old Brea has been secretly meeting a lover. A rooftop is easily interpreted as a tower, which we know from the inversion project can actually be an inverted tower/underground place. A crypt. We know Bael's Stark-maiden lover met him in the crypts, and disappeared when her father was asleep.
We're given this odd exchange between Cat and the Kindly Man about the Stranger. We'll come back to it.
OK now this part is really important, because it establishes that the cloak and the boots are imperative parts of her transformation from Arya to Cat. These are obvious connections to Mance because his cloak is a major part of his identity. And we can connect him with boots because Mel puts a glamour on him, and Mel mentions "a dead man's boots" as one way to create a glamour.
So it's crazy talk that this chapter is about Bael/Abel/Mance? Nope. Here's some more. All roof rats are thieves... and all crows are liars?
More in progress. Feel free to add whatever.
At first re-read, this chapter is resoundingly about Bael the Bard/Mance Rayder, Lyanna/Ashara, and Mance being glamoured, along with a smattering of other themes.
Arya is in Braavos posing as Cat, a girl from King's Landing, who is living with the cockle-seller Brusco and his family, which includes his daughters Brea and Talea.
We learn Arya has been having wolf dreams, and appears to be the pack leader. Obvs a nod to Nymeria and Arya's warg connection to her direwolf.
I dreamed I was a wolf again. She could remember the smells best of all: trees and earth, her pack brothers, the scents of horse and deer and man, each different from the others, and the sharp acrid tang of fear, always the same. Some nights the wolf dreams were so vivid that she could hear her brothers howling even as she woke, and once Brea had claimed that she was growling in her sleep as she thrashed beneath the covers. She thought that was some stupid lie till Talea said it too.
I should not be dreaming wolf dreams, the girl told herself. I am a cat now, not a wolf. I am Cat of the Canals. The wolf dreams belonged to Arya of House Stark. Try as she might, though, she could not rid herself of Arya. It made no difference whether she slept beneath the temple or in the little room beneath the eaves with Brusco's daughters, the wolf dreams still haunted her by night . . . and sometimes other dreams as well.
The wolf dreams were the good ones. In the wolf dreams she was swift and strong, running down her prey with her pack at her heels.
I should not be dreaming wolf dreams, the girl told herself. I am a cat now, not a wolf. I am Cat of the Canals. The wolf dreams belonged to Arya of House Stark. Try as she might, though, she could not rid herself of Arya. It made no difference whether she slept beneath the temple or in the little room beneath the eaves with Brusco's daughters, the wolf dreams still haunted her by night . . . and sometimes other dreams as well.
The wolf dreams were the good ones. In the wolf dreams she was swift and strong, running down her prey with her pack at her heels.
If this is a parallel or conflation with another story, could it be a warg preventing someone from saving a woman who is being murdered?
It was the other dream she hated, the one where she had two feet instead of four. In that one she was always looking for her mother, stumbling through a wasted land of mud and blood and fire. It was always raining in that dream, and she could hear her mother screaming, but a monster with a dog's head would not let her go save her. In that dream she was always weeping, like a frightened little girl. Cats never weep, she told herself, no more than wolves do. It's just a stupid dream.
Then Cat gives us this. 14 year old Brea has been secretly meeting a lover. A rooftop is easily interpreted as a tower, which we know from the inversion project can actually be an inverted tower/underground place. A crypt. We know Bael's Stark-maiden lover met him in the crypts, and disappeared when her father was asleep.
Brea and Talea sat at the front of the boat whispering to one another. Cat knew that they were talking about Brea's boy, the one she climbed up on the roof to meet, after her father was asleep.
We're given this odd exchange between Cat and the Kindly Man about the Stranger. We'll come back to it.
"...All mankind belongs to him . . . else somewhere in the world would be a folk who lived forever. Do you know of any folk who live forever?"
"No," she would answer. "All men must die."
"No," she would answer. "All men must die."
OK now this part is really important, because it establishes that the cloak and the boots are imperative parts of her transformation from Arya to Cat. These are obvious connections to Mance because his cloak is a major part of his identity. And we can connect him with boots because Mel puts a glamour on him, and Mel mentions "a dead man's boots" as one way to create a glamour.
The rest of the time she was an orphan girl in a pair of battered boots too big for her feet and a brown cloak with a ragged hem.
So it's crazy talk that this chapter is about Bael/Abel/Mance? Nope. Here's some more. All roof rats are thieves... and all crows are liars?
"What do you know that you did not know when you left us?" the kindly man would ask as soon as he saw her. I know that Brusco's daughter Brea meets a boy on the roof when her father is asleep, she thought. Brea lets him touch her, Talea says, even though he's just a roof rat and all the roof rats are supposed to be thieves.