#symbolism in asoiaf

[tidetower]

The Prince of the Hightower and the Heir to High Tide

Artist: erchitos

[wodania]

“our towers, they rose up and set with the sun / our sermons, they burnt us with fiery tongues / we wrought our wings of metal, surprised when we fell,” eastward of eden by amelia day

“The Valyrians learned one deplorable thing from the Ghiscari: slavery. The Ghiscari whom they conquered were the first to be thus enslaved, but not the last. The burning mountains of the Fourteen Flames were rich with ore, and the Valyrians hungered for it: copper and tin for the bronze of their weapons and monuments; later iron for the steel of their legendary blades; and always gold and silver to pay for it all.” a world of ice and fire, ancient history: valyria’s children

“The freed slaves parted before her. “Mother,” they called from a hundred throats, a thousand, ten thousand. “Mother,” they sang, their fingers brushing her legs as she flew by. “Mother, mother, mother!”” a storm of swords, daenerys iv

[sare11aa11eras]

Okay to further the argument: Ser Robert Strong/Gregor Clegane is both the worst Kingsguard and the pinnacle of the Kingsguard. He’s assaulted a Princess and murdered three members of the Royal Family (let’s leave aside the fact that the current Royal Family is not the same). He’s a serial killer. He is presented in Book One as the fundamental deconstructed truth of knighthood, the reason why the Hound exists and why Sandor can never be a knight. Gregor is the embodiment of the Lannister army in book 2. But then at the same time, he is the Kingsguard ideal— completely obedient, completely without thought, agency, interest, motivation, or qualm. Ser Gerold Hightower says that the Kingsguard are sworn to defend the king, not judge him. You know who will never judge the king? A brainless zombie. You know who can never object to a king’s order? A brainless zombie. You know who is really good at singlemindedly killing all physical threats?? A SEVEN FOOT TALL BRAINLESS ZOMBIE. Arys Oakheart almost got his charge killed because a hot girl told him to. Criston Cole started a civil war. Jaime Lannister killed the king to save the city. You know who’s not doing any of that? Robert Strong.

Visenya Targaryen had many legacies. Her son, Maegor the Cruel, bears a certain resemblance to Robert Strong, both being massive, strong, brutal, and cruel men with multiple wives, both probably the products of dark magic— which I find fitting because Robert Strong is the final essence of perhaps her most enduring legacy: the institution of the Kingsguard.

[branwinged]

seeing some prophecy discourse which has once again reminded me why i personally find the prospect of dany as the prince that was promised really compelling. and it makes the targaryens so much thematically richer. like, they only survived the doom through the power of prophecy and then the visions marked them forever and this thing, this blessing which gave generations of targaryens some existential meaning eventually morphed into a curse which brought so many of them great misery—"my brothers dreamed of dragons too, and the dreams killed them, every one." (aemon, affc) and in due course almost ended their line once again with rhaegar. but then dany happened.

almost four hundred years since the doom when prophecy saved them and nearly killed them again on the trident, dany was born. dany who carries echoes of all her targaryen ancestors within her. she's aegon the conqueror come again but she's also maegor the cruel when she promises the khals who had hurt her khalasar would die screaming. she's rhaenyra in her struggles to wield power and establish legitimacy as a woman, she shares her sense of egalitarianism with egg, and she drinks from the cup passed from rhaegar, i.e. inherits (what he once thought of) his narrative destiny to help defend the realms during the long night.

dany who is both their beginning, since she's the first targaryen created and introduced to us on page and the narrative end point of their dynasty. which reflects all the way into her arc being cyclical by design as it calls back to the foundation of the valyrian empire in essos—during the fifth war the freehold torched old ghis with dragonfire so nothing would grow there again and centuries later this girl, the last dragon, is going to help plant trees there again. it's not about retreading old ground or rejecting her house words but about redefining what it means to be the blood of the dragon. which is not to say all that came before her was meaningless since this recontextualisation is only possible through the three centuries of ancestral history weighing on her. and dany's very existence echoes back in time because the prophecy itself has influenced the lives of generations of targaryens. three hundred years of history, all the glory and the horror concentrated in this one person-point. the prince that was promised not simply as a figure of the long night but as someone who is the apotheosis of their house. dany as both their beginning and their end, because the iron throne is presently a symbol of stagnation, a world in stasis, and it has to go. no restoration, instead the old world dying in fire and a new world being born in the aftermath.

[15-lizards]

Ten million ways you could contextualize this but for simplicity: Sansa and The Faith in some way

[visenyaism]

Sorry if you’ve been asked this but what do you think of all the rot in asoiaf? Obv some of it is related to the problems with monarchy but I feel like a lot of it isn’t and it just leaves me curious. Like cold hands or people killed by the others idk what that symbolizes there. Jon is in a land in which rot is in stasis from the cold and it’s creepy as shit. And then there’s stuff that could have multiple interpretations like dany by proxy of selmy experiencing bio warfare with the corpses like I know some people see it as the fall of old ghis but I wondered if maybe it was a sign to dany about breaking the wheel and doing as her ancestors did. Idk I know it’s a nasty series and sometimes grrm is just doing stuff so that it’s gross but I feel like rot comes up SO much and I people are usually talking online about like Tywin when it comes to rot.

Oh one of my favorite things about the asoiaf series is how heavy-handed george rr martin is with the rot symbolism. and (at the risk of sounding like an mfa vomited on my keyboard) the way that the political, pestilential, societal, and climatological aspects of the rot symbolism all interconnect.

In a society founded on so many feudal evils that has perpetuated for centuries, something has to give. It is a recurring theme in these books that violations of human decency under feudalism cause cataclysmic societal collapse represented through literal and metaphorical pestilence.

There’s the sociopolitical collapse in the riverlands caused by war of human decency and norms like guest right and prohibitions on kinslaying or cannibalism just dedicating away as times get hard. broken men. bodies left to rot in the sun for the crows to feast on. There’s the fermenting wildfire under every major street in Kings Landing. There’s the familial/relational decay of incest especially the targaryens and the lannisters. The people who hold power and that society rot, despite everyone’s best efforts at keeping up appearances: Robert Baratheon the “war hero” dies of a very nasty festering stomach wound he got in a drunken hunting accident, Tywin gets shot on the privy and his corpse putefies in the sept.

The climate stuff is also very salient. The series starts during late summer and as things get worse and worse in the world declines into the autumn where the summer fruit and all of the abundance is literally rotting through the hands of the characters. (see: renly’s peach vs doran’s blood oranges!) The cold up at the wall keeps the rot at bay for a while, but it does not entirely stop it. Coldhands’ hands are still blackening. Things are still unraveling at the hinges of the world. that’s pretty representative of the way that the violence of the border wall and the penal colony stationed there to patrol it are not sustainable. The decline of the night’s watch from a once proud order to a penal colony full of cruel and often impoverished convicts dropped off there by circumstance is a symptom of the society that sends people up there. But something still has to give. The wall will fall down and the existential crisis will come, it’s just slowed.

Critically, there is also the forgotten parable of Old Valyria: a society founded on extreme cruelty and slavery which eventually experiences cataclysm coming up from the very tunnels they send the enslaved into to die for the empire. A lot of what Daenerys experiences in Essos is an extension of that commentary on slave societies to me. Like. as the slavers try and reconquer places dany has liberated, people fleeing the violence, bring disease like the bloody flux with them. The rot creeps back. (important: disease and rot in the series is not always something people get for being morally bad. it often happens to people who just have no choice but to live in these places.)

But that’s why I think the way Volantis is described really ties a lot of those elements of the rot symbolism together. This is a society that has founded itself up from out of the corpse of old valyria. The city maintains some veneer of old glory, but the fountains are dry and the paint is chipping. The people there eat food that is so sweet it literally causes your teeth to rot out if you were to consume it every day. In terms of climate, I think it’s relevant that it is described as extremely, almost disgustingly, humid, and everything is excessively perfumed to cover up a tangible smell of decay.The air is quite literally cloying and difficult to breathe. You feel dirty after walking through it. The evil of slavery is rotting the city to its core in the same way that the evil of feudalism and the wars for the iron throne is affecting the city of king’s landing.

To wrap allllll this up. Rot is a signal that obviously societal collapse is coming, but it’s also transitional: the empire of old ghis brought about its downfall, and then valyria found itself on the same principles which brought about its own downfall, and then the Targaryen went to westeros and engineered their collapse in Kings Landing while the freehold did the same essos. I think the climatological and disease aspects of it are really heavy-handed symbolism that something has to give in the societies and we’re at the point in the series where that’s about to happen.

I think the ultimate arc of the series ends in some form of significant societal collapse, but instead of building upon a rotten foundation again people are going to have try and hope for something new and gather the courage to build that.,quite literally dreaming of the spring.

[weirwoodweb]

Vanity

[ophelieverse]

The first imagine of this episode being a little model of a dragon with a broken wing that falls on the floor.The perfect symbol and foreshadowing of the way Sunfyre will fall from the sky with a wing half torn from his body.

One,Viserys precious creation,from Alicent’s hands.

The other,Aegon most precious thing,from Aemond’s ones.

[sunny12th]

I see where the 'dragons are nukes' people are coming from in terms of the total devastation dragons are capable of in battle and in the hands of those that want to use them in such a way.

However, dragons are clearly meant to symbolize more than just their raw power in wartime. dragons are fire made flesh, dragons are Summer, dragons are flight and freedom, dragons are playful and warm, dragons are life in defiance of winter. dragons are the strength needed to break chains, topple corruption, and burn evil itself. dragons are flaming swords and lightbringers. dragons are loyalty and protectiveness. dragons are passion and mystery and magic.

dragons are the opposite end of the magical spectrum to the others.

and dragons are, above all else, lizard cats that like to bask in the sun and get scratches on the underside of their chins.

[wodania]

every blow she dealt him was sweeter than a kiss

[thevelaryons]

Addam Velaryon + Jaime Lannister ↳ parallel journeys as young knights

[iceywolf24]

I do like how Bran is associated with classic horror creatures and symbolism but it's about using them in a good way.

Weirwoods are basically ghost trees but Bran uses them to reassure and strengthen people, not just taunt them as shown with Theon in ADWD.

He has werewolf symbolism through skinchanging Summer but he uses it for good. Look how many wights summer has killed.

Ravens are seen as ominous creatures, but they're actually messengers and feast upon ice wights.

Mists are seen as scary and are associated with greenseers but they can actually feel warm.

Darkness is seen as evil, but it's the darkness beneath the earth is where seeds start to grow.

[15-lizards]

hello hannah my beloved!!! i was wondering, do you have any thoughts on marriage/wedding costumes for the different regions? embroidery, colours, etc? we have the cloak of course, but would dorne follow this tradition too, considering it's so hot, would they use sheer material? does the bedding ceremony (and subsequent tearing of the dress...eugh) affect the choice of dress? kisses my wonderful friend from the puter 🫶

Ur in luck my dearest wife bc I’ve done a few wedding posts here and here and here already

Colors as symbols is Very Important to me. Black in Dorne bc in ancient Egypt black was a good and lucky color, used to represent fertility in such a dry arid place. Green often used in the north as another sign of spring and fertility. Riverlanders using multiple natural dyes in their dresses bc representative of blooming flowers :) Gold used by the upper classes so they can look more like they were blessed by the Maiden. White is fine for purity symbolism but I hate hate hate all white wedding dresses in medieval fantasy bc They Would Not Wear That Shit

Girls from all over the country probably embroider their dresses with their mothers and sisters and aunts and grandmothers. Every woman lends a hand in the coming of age of another. Maybe in the north the family matriarch gives them basically a Rushynk to wear around their neck during the wedding for happiness and protection. Many many traditions of being gifted something by your mother or elder sister or other female family member to have during the wedding and bring with you to your new home as a symbol of having a lifeline back to your family

[ride-thedragon]

Nettles as the Cannibal's rider.

This is a sentiment I keep seeing a lot, and while I won't speak on the leaks more than I have, this idea is a bit interesting to me..

The Cannibal as a dragon is a wild dragon, meaning it has little hunan interaction and loves on its own. Its diet is both people and dragon eggs/hatchlings. It's meant to be a direct symbol of the carnivorous act of war among the Targaryens. It's one of the oldest draogns alive, one of the biggest as well. It marks the internal conflict of house Targaryens, nothing but a dragon can end itself so well. Its cave is littered with the bones of humans and hatchlings alike.

I'm a firm believer in dragons reflecting their riders. Nettles is one of the most obvious cases. She's a sheep stealing brown skinny girl on her sheepstealing brown skinny dragon. They're bond is also unique among any other riders we know.

It's more akin to the power and status a girl would gain from a marriage to a Targaryen. Power, protection, wealth, and honour. It's a blood sealed relationship similar to marriages in Westeros with the maidenhead idea as well as the blood drawn in Valyrian ceremonies.

So to change her narrative and giving her the Cannibal as her dragon does change the narrative of her character quite a bit.

If her dragon is the idea of Targaryen in fighting, she becomes the symbol of the war. A personification of the conflict. On one hand, because the Cannibal has his own plot with Sunfyre (rip my beloved grey ghost) and a symbolic departure after Corlys passes, Nettles can be kept in the narrative longer but she can also cause way more conflict. Like have her not being a dragonseed be an actual dividing line between people, have her be a conflict between Jace and Rhaenyra, Baela and Jace, Daemon and Rhaenyra and so on.

That dragon is chaos, let's see her devour the house from within.

Also, this adds to another point of how Nettles claims this dragon: Is she feeding kids or stealing eggs? Or is she waiting until after it eats other dragonseeds to get closer?

While I don't think it will happen, I do plan on watching the show before making any theories or coming to any conclusions on arcs for my favourite characters, it's an interesting idea.

Rhaena on Sheepstealer likewise causes a similar issue, but I'll wait for the show (maybe) to voice that thought.

[soup-in-my-fly]

Brain… rot…

[blueebeetl]

- when deer antlers tangle, sometimes both animals lose; both animals’ antlers get wedged together during sparring. sometimes one of them will expire from exhaustion or injury, leaving the other to drag the carcass around until it too dies of exposure or becomes an easy kill for predators. a mutual, identical conflict, binding them to the other, both bringing about their own, and the others doom-

> art: shebsart (tumblr), yosb, imjustapoorwayfaringgeek (tumblr), itholic (tumblr), matrose (tumblr)