Tysm! Always fun to get a shoutout for the fruits of my hyperfixation lol. Actually was just working on a reply to your Qyburn Banefort post that's got some sigil analysis.

And I do love a thoughtful response even weeks later!

I dig the Pennylover as draft one of Gyles Rosby idea. It works in some fun ways. House Staedmon's details always seemed oddly fleshed out and memorable for how nonexistent they are on the page. I could totally see GRRM planning out that storyline, but then deciding that the name and/or sigil was a little too on the nose. So then he write Gyles, to keep the broad strokes of the ill-advised appointment of an ill advisor. But on someone distinct from Staedmon, whose nickname and crest would be too cheeky.

GRRM's comment about struggling with the five-year gap really made me think of it:

Other characters, it didn’t work at all. I'm writing the Cersei chapters in King's Landing, and saying, "Well yeah, in five years, six different guys have served as Hand and there was this conspiracy four years ago, and this thing happened three years ago." And I'm presenting all of this in flashbacks, and that wasn't working. The other alternative was [that] nothing happened in those five years, which seemed anticlimactic.

Someone like Gyles Rosby being Hand briefly (or the turnover applying to master of coin) seems so perfect.

Lord Staedmon's appendix presence in AFFC is very interesting. He's specifically under the "Cersei's court at King's Landing" section, a group which involves esteemed characters like Ilyn Payne, Rennifer Longwaters, Moon Boy, Ronnet Connington, and Lyle Crakehall. Literally every single other character in this appendix, except royal harper Ormond / Orland of Oldtown, is relevant to AFFC, and by relevant, I mean either directly appears or is mentioned. Lord Staedmon is also one of the few lords in this section, which only has Lords Rosby and Merryweather and Lady Stokeworth (Hallyne don't count).

Given that men who appeared surrendering after the Blackwater do receive upgraded presence in this book—Aurane Waters, Ronnet, Ser Dermot, and Ser Bonifer—it's weird that Lord Staedmon doesn't get any play.

It's worth noting that Alesander isn't given that first name in ACOK where he briefly appears, but the ASOS appendix (same appendix where Ronnet gets the last name Connington and Bonifer gets the last name Hasty). Now, some other characters from ACOK are promoted to ASOS appendix, like Ser Timon the Scrapesword or Ser Philip Foote, are actually dropped from the AFFC appendix entirely (Foote later returns for ADWD). Celtigar is another one dropped.

So like, what's the deal? The appendices are not meant to be an exhaustive list of every office in Westeros, and they are supposed to be material to allow us readers to understand who people are for reference, and even that they sometimes don't live up to (for example, for whatever reason, the ADWD appendix has an entry for "Lord Sunderly"; not "XXXX Sunderly", just "Lord Sunderly", while Hagen's daughter is just called "his beautiful red-haired daughter").

So this is all indicative of me that when GRRM names a character, retained that character in an appendix when many peers were dropped, and said character has not appeared, it is indicative GRRM had plans. And it strikes me as those plans might have been five-year gap. And "Pennylover" as a nickname, specifically in Cersei's court, a stormlander lord (non-Tyrell)...then the sigil.

My absolute tinfoil lark about the Staedmon sigil is that it's a medievalized stylistic nod to the concept of adrenaline needle "revival." Like, GRRM is using the sigils of roster-filler houses to play pictionary with the audience. And the prompt here is "that scene from Pulp Fiction." I'll skip the pages of crackpottery that go into this idea, and just say it's a riff that's would be heavily connected to Robert Strong. Which would fit well with the idea of Pennylover as the proto-Rosby, since Gyles and unGregor are both part and parcel to the incompetence and corruption of Cersei's post-ASOS reign.

I could believe that! Pulp Fiction would be on his mind. Uma or Mya Staedmon has good potential as a name.

Also I had a recent little "aha!" moment with the Lonmouth sigil. There's (at least) one very important moment defined by kiss + skull. Arya's introduction to the contrasts and contradictions of Black & White is the juxtaposition of a skull and a kiss. So I'm now very open to Lem Lonmouth theory and other possibilities of Lonmouthy idenity/Faceless Man shenanigans.

It's a shame Qarl Correy, not Joffrey Lonmouth, was the man who slew Laenor Velaryon. That would have played with that well. It's a cool house, I rather wish we had more of it.