A Game of Thrones is jam-packed with endings encoded in foreshadowing. There’s a GRRM quote where he pretty much says exactly that, but I can’t be bothered to find it right now. Here is Bran’s first vision/dream thing in the first book. I’m going to be going back and forth between two passages so I’ll add some color.
He looked south, and saw the great blue-green rush of the Trident. He saw his father pleading with the king, his face etched with grief. He saw Sansa crying herself to sleep at night, and he saw Arya watching in silence and holding her secrets hard in her heart. There were shadows all around them. One shadow was dark as ash, with the terrible face of a hound. Another was armored like the sun, golden and beautiful. Over them both loomed a giant in armor made of stone, but when he opened his visor, there was nothing inside but darkness and thick black blood. (AGOT Bran III)
Ned, Sansa and Arya are each in a bad way. They’re surrounded by shadows. I’m going to call them Ash Hound and Sun Armor. Over them both (“both” being Ash Hound and Sun Armor) loomed a giant in armor made of stone. I’m going to call him Stone Giant.
The positioning of the characters seems to be something like this.
StoneGiant
AshHound SunArmor
Ned Arya Sansa
That’s my understanding of the scene anyway. Stone Giant is looming over Ash Hound and Sun Armor who are looming over Ned, Arya and Sansa. Therefore Stone Giant is also looming over Ned, Arya and Sansa.
There is some ambiguity with the giant that I’ll get into later. It isn’t clear if “stone” is describing the giant’s body, the giant’s armor, or both.
“Surrounded” by shadows suggests to me that there are more than just the two. Two people can flank or stand beside you, but it takes more than two people to surround you. In light of that, I think the implication is that there are many shadows and Stone Giant is another one of the shadows.
Stone Giant is bigger or higher than the other shadows, which might suggest that he’s more significant. He’s also a giant, which suggests greater significance too.
The word shadow suggests to me that these figures are negatively aligned with Ned, Sansa and Arya. I don’t want to neglect the possibility that they aren’t negatively aligned, so I’ll mark this as a fork in the road of interpretation that I can return to later.
Initial ideas for Ash Hound’s identity:
- Sandor Clegane “The Hound”
- Any of the people who have worn Sandor’s hound helmet
- Brienne of Tarth “The Beauty”
Initial ideas for Sun Armor’s identity:
- Jaime Lannister “Kingslayer”
- Brienne of Tarth “The Beauty”
Initial ideas for Stone Giant’s identity:
- Gregor Clegane “The Mountain that Rides”
One shadow was dark as ash, with the terrible face of a hound.
I think Ash Hound is Sandor. Dark is a fitting description of Sandor’s personality and entire miserable existence. Ash alludes to his fiery trauma. Terrible face alludes to the burns on his face. The face of a hound describes his helmet fashioned in the shape of a snarling hound, as well as the sigil of House Clegane. “Surrounding” the Starks makes me think of the major role Sandor plays in the stories of both Sansa and Arya.
Another was armored like the sun, golden and beautiful.
I don’t have any good leads on the identity of Sun Armor. Jaime comes to mind, but I don’t see how his story is particularly connected to Ned, Arya or Sansa or how he might come to be more connected to them. He’s searching for the girls in order to fulfill his vow to Catelyn, so maybe that’s the connection, but it doesn’t seem very strong to me so far.
Over them both loomed a giant in armor made of stone, but when he opened his visor, there was nothing inside but darkness and thick black blood.
I think Stone Giant is Petyr Baelish. It’s cool and tricky in several different ways.
In the context of a “Hound”, when I hear about a foreboding giant my mind naturally goes to Gregor Clegane. He’s the Hound’s brother, negatively aligned like “shadow” might suggest, and he’s very large like a giant. It’s a comfortable solution that I’m likely to settle upon for a long time, if not forever, which is what a good red herring is supposed to do.
Another way Petyr as the giant is tricky is because he’s small of stature and his nickname is Littlefinger. Of all the people I might consider to be a giant of prophecy, the little man with the little name might be the last person to come to mind.
He may not look as tall or as strong as some, but he is worth more than all of them. Trust in him and do as he says. -Lysa (ASOS Sansa VI)
Yet another way that Petyr as the giant is tricky and cool is because his sigil is a mockingbird. If we look into Petyr’s history we find that Petyr chose the mockingbird sigil to replace the sigil of House Baelish. House Baelish’s original sigil was the head of the Titan of Braavos, because Petyr’s grandfather came from Braavos.
The device painted on the shield was one Sansa did not know; a grey stone head with fiery eyes, upon a light green field. “My grandfather’s shield,” Petyr explained when he saw her gazing at it. “His own father was born in Braavos and came to the Vale as a sellsword in the hire of Lord Corbray, so my grandfather took the head of the Titan as his sigil when he was knighted.”
“It’s very fierce,” said Sansa.
“Rather too fierce, for an amiable fellow like me,” said Petyr. “I much prefer my mockingbird.” (ASOS Sansa VI)
What is the Titan of Braavos? It’s a stone giant in bronze armor that looms over Braavos and everyone who passes beneath him.
one foot planted on each mountain, his shoulders looming tall above the jagged crests.
Over them both loomed a giant
Who passed beneath him? Arya!
His legs bestrode the gap, one foot planted on each mountain, his shoulders looming tall above the jagged crests. His legs were carved of solid stone, the same black granite as the sea monts on which he stood, though around his hips he wore an armored skirt of greenish bronze. His breastplate was bronze as well, and his head in his crested halfhelm. His blowing hair was made of hempen ropes dyed green, and huge fires burned in the caves that were his eyes. One hand rested atop the ridge to his left, bronze fingers coiled about a knob of stone; the other thrust up into the air, clasping the hilt of a broken sword. (AFFC Arya I)
So we have a symbolic Petyr looming over Arya during her time in Braavos while a literal Petyr is looming over Sansa at the Eyrie.
Littlefinger is the second most devious man in the Seven Kingdoms. -Varys (AGOT Eddard XV)
If Varys is a reliable judge of character, then it makes sense why Stone Giant in the vision is bigger or higher than Ash Hound and Sun Armor.
Tangential thoughts: I’m beginning to notice a trend that Martin loves to make the solutions to his prophecies and visions half literal and half metaphorical/symbolic. He did it in the Girl in Grey prophecy a lot. I think the half-literal-half-metaphorical thing might echo the relativistic style with which Martin seems to be crafting this story at every level conceivable. I’m rewarded with a bigger picture of the story when I’m able to reconcile the two seemingly irreconcilable modes of interpretation and marry the literal and the metaphorical.
The Titan of Braavos’s armor is made of bronze, so that may or may not conflict with the Stone Giant depending on how we interpret the vision.
a giant in armor made of stone
Does “stone” describe the giant’s body or the giant’s armor or both? Until a more satisfying solution than Petyr comes to my attention, I’m going with body.
Judging from other visions and prophecies, Martin seems to be very careful with his choice and composition of words. So I tend to think that the ambiguity here is part of the design, specifically for the purpose of causing readers to generate a faulty interpretation and force them to have to re-imagine a new possible meaning of the same language.
a giant, in armor made of stone
a giant in armor, made of stone
Do you see how Petyr as the giant of prophecy creates a meaningful resolution for the vision? First I have to notice a pattern that maybe there is some recurring thing going on with characters rejecting their identities and then meeting unhappy endings. Then I can test it on various characters to see if their unhappy endings were in fact preceded by their rejection of their inherited identity.
“Rather too fierce, for an amiable fellow like me,” said Petyr. “I much prefer my mockingbird.” (ASOS Sansa VI)
The taste of hot blood filled Jon’s mouth, and he knew that Ghost had killed that night. No, he thought. I am a man, not a wolf. (ADWD Jon III)
Then that grants access to the Petyr=Giant interpretation.
“And there it stands, miserable as it is. My ancestral home. It has no name, I fear. A great lord’s seat ought to have a name, wouldn’t you agree? Winterfell, the Eyrie, Riverrun, those are castles. Lord of Harrenhal now, that has a sweet ring to it, but what was I before? Lord of Sheepshit and Master of the Drearfort? It lacks a certain something.” (ASOS Sansa VI)
He hates his heritage and, in this story, that attitude spells trouble for you. Then Petyr=Giant works as a key that unlocks the vision’s meaning.
The reader sets out on his adventure with little or no tools at all. He’s equipped with nothing but faith that the story will be good. His faith compels him to conduct experiments in search of the story’s premises, attempting to use the text to define, contextualize and frame other parts of the text. If the experiment doesn’t reveal something new in the interpretation, then the reader discards the hypothesized premise and tests a different one. If the experiment does reveal something new in the interpretation, then the reader is justified to conduct another experiment using the same hypothesis. If the hypothesized premise continues to prove useful in revealing new truths, then the reader is justified to call the hypothesized premise a premise.
Well, it makes sense in my head anyway.
It all starts from a position of faith. Without a down payment of faith that There is Value in Metaphor, I won’t get anywhere.
Those tools help sophisticate the interpretations and reveal greater truths. A greater truth here being, perhaps, that no matter how nice Littlefinger seems, he is nothing but trouble for the Starks.
but when he opened his visor, there was nothing inside but darkness and thick black blood.
There’s a potential mismatch with the helmets that the giants are wearing. The helmet in Bran’s vision has a visor that is being raised. The helmet on the Titan of Braavos is a crested halfhelm.
when he opened his visor
his head in his crested halfhelm.
The visor and crest isn’t a mismatch because the absence of evidence isn’t evidence of absence. Just because a visor wasn’t mentioned in Arya’s description of the Titan doesn’t mean the Titan doesn’t have a visor. Likewise, just because a crest wasn’t mentioned in Bran’s dream doesn’t mean that the Stone Giant doesn’t have a crest.
The potential for mismatch is the halfhelm, and my lack of knowledge about helms. I don’t know if a helm can have a visor and be a halfhelm at the same time. I’ll ask around though! For now, I’ll let it go.
there was nothing inside but darkness and thick black blood.
I don’t know how a helmet full of darkness and thick black blood relates to Petyr very strongly. He’s a vicious and nefarious man, so it seems to be a match as far as his alignment goes. But it feels weak, unsatisfying, incomplete, and I want more.
I can see how the thick black blood relates to metaphorical Petyr. The Braavosi pour burning pitch out of the Titan and onto enemies who pass beneath it.
Enemy ships can easily be steered onto the rocks by the watchmen inside the Titan, and stones and pots of burning pitch can be dropped onto the decks of any that attempt to pass between the Titan’s legs without leave. This has seldom been necessary, however; not since the Century of Blood has any enemy been so rash as to attempt to provoke the Titan’s wrath. (TWOIAF Braavos)
Granted, the burning pitch seems to come out of the Titan’s crotch rather than the helmet. But then again, it’s a dream, and maybe it’s accurate enough as a symbolic impression.
Petyr is a shadow over Ned because he betrayed Ned.
Littlefinger laughed. “I ought to make you say it, but that would be cruel . . . so have no fear, my good lord. For the sake of the love I bear for Catelyn, I will go to Janos Slynt this very hour and make certain that the City Watch is yours. (AGOT Eddard XIII)
Additionally, Ned survives through his children. So Petyr is a looming giant shadow over Ned’s children and thus over Ned metaphorically as well as literally.
The Ghost of High Heart
“I dreamt a wolf howling in the rain, but no one heard his grief,” the dwarf woman was saying. “I dreamt such a clangor I thought my head might burst, drums and horns and pipes and screams, but the saddest sound was the little bells. I dreamt of a maid at a feast with purple serpents in her hair, venom dripping from their fangs. And later I dreamt that maid again, slaying a savage giant in a castle built of snow.” She turned her head sharply and smiled through the gloom, right at Arya. “You cannot hide from me, child. Come closer, now.” (ASOS Arya VIII)
Coming soon
Apples and Dragons 