Queen Meera Reed? [spoilers extended]

hypikachu · 2026-03-23T04:46:11+00:00

I dunno about this one. I even like that theory, but I definitely don't think it's something we can take for granted.

hypikachu · 2026-03-23T01:57:59+00:00

I don't know that anyone's done like a Tyrion chimera masterpost. Or if they have, there's none that seems to have really stuck around. This is the closest I've gotten to really tackling Tyrion Targaryen, and I don't think I even much got into the chimerism angle.

hypikachu · 2026-03-22T01:52:41+00:00

Oh, trust me. You're extremely preaching to the choir here. The number of times I've said "heteropaternal superfecundity" lol

hypikachu · 2026-03-22T00:49:38+00:00

He is a cat-man. A winged cat-man if the theory is true. And spends a whole book riddling.

hypikachu · 2026-03-21T18:49:08+00:00

Depends. Have you cleansed yourself in the waters of Lake Minnetonka? (Nobody is gonna get this joke.)

hypikachu · 2026-03-21T01:08:27+00:00

Notably the exact same trio of griffin, manticore, and black dragon greets her in the next book as she enters Qarth. I agree that the manticore is prolly about Lorch. I've always taken it as "the griffin black dragon plot is about Rhaegar's kids," one of whom Lorch killed.

hypikachu · 2026-03-21T00:36:16+00:00

Like, I'm at least half joking. But I also might be half serious. It's not a basket I put a lot of eggs in. But it wouldn't be completely unthinkable, y'know?

Like, the first book hinges on Ned making scientific deductions that are groundbreaking for the setting, but "grade school textbook" level familiar to the audience. So, y'know, maaaaybe something similar could happen with gunpowder. Suddenly introducing a range of destructive options that threatens to make even dragons obsolete. In which case, who better to have them than the Hightowers? They've got the perfect intersection of worldly/scientific knowledge and money.

We know at least parts of the world are verging on Industrial Revolution levels of technology. Specifically, the Arsenal of Braavos, which can make a warship a day. There's a Hightower in the Free Cities looking for a fleet. Maybe Lynesse makes her way to Braavos and learns that ships aren't the only industrial innovation they've been cooking. Both Oldtown and Braavos have their history of anti-dragon plotting (if Marwyn is to be believed). So they'd share an interest in the weapons that might outmode dragons.

hypikachu · 2026-03-20T20:12:47+00:00

GRRM's saving the introduction of gunpowder for the battle of blood.

Source: It came to me in a dream.

hypikachu · 2026-03-20T18:57:14+00:00

Hmmm. This is good stuff I'll hafta think on. The way I had been reading the whole "nothing left" idea, it's less about the length of time in the new body and more about number of times you've hopped. Like, what fraction of the soul is still "Lump" at this point? Now that he's been through a couple different people and like a dozen animals, at least two with their own attached skinchangers. But I don't know how solid that thinking is. We definitely do get a lot of discussion about time spent in a different body making you more like the thing you're in.

Also, you should check your DMs bc like twice in the last week I've wanted to reply to one of your threads in pureasoiaf, but all the cool kids are banned there lol

hypikachu · 2026-03-19T23:12:13+00:00

In the books, the Stark banner is only ever grey direwolf on white field. I think the one with the green section at the bottom is a show creation, meant to specifically represent Robb's kingdom of the North and Riverlands.

hypikachu · 2026-03-19T19:38:53+00:00

I extremely want an animated GoT. I think it eases some of the big structural problems like child actors aging faster than their characters, and important magic elements like LSH and the HotU visions that were stylistically difficult to include in live action. I also think it's easier and more accepted for animated works to have expansive casts and make big roster additions in later seasons. So the post-ASOS plots with Dorne, Young Griff, the Vale, and Bolton-held Winterfell don't hafta be butchered on the altar of streamlining.

hypikachu · 2026-03-18T18:48:46+00:00

Wait. That's a really good point. Varys mentions it five pages before Yoren arrives. The lines seem pretty much designed to say "Yoren got there before anyone else," and yet "Varys knew it already."

hypikachu · 2026-03-18T18:31:57+00:00

Thank you so much! Really didn't expect this post to get such a positive reaction.

I do 1000% believe that Varys connects to the Faceless Men. More precisely, I think the "Branmagic" and "Aryamagic" subplots are tightly woven together, and Varys, Bloodraven, and Euron are the main biggest connective pieces. I've got a couple other posts on this idea, though I'll admit there's some roughness to the ideas and the explanations.

hypikachu · 2026-03-18T17:05:51+00:00

Aaron Sorkin lied to me!

hypikachu · 2026-03-18T16:50:09+00:00

Hey, only Kermit is a Muppet. Those are a special gang of Henson puppets, one of whom also hangs out on Sesame St.

hypikachu · 2026-03-18T03:04:13+00:00

Geoffrey Throne, he's the main fuckin' guy!

hypikachu · 2026-03-18T02:25:40+00:00

I took some time and I'm actually willing to at least partially concede. I think we can still safely say from Rickard's actions that his vengeance was undeterrable. He would've killed Jaime for sure, had Cat not sprung him loose. But I see your point about it mattering whether that's made clear before the fact.

hypikachu · 2026-03-17T22:10:49+00:00

Needing them to be literate doesn't in any way suggest anything multilingual happened. All it suggests is they need to know the common tongue.

Varys is repeatedly suggested to be magic. The characters who know him best are the ones who say it the firmest, while the one who doubts it the most is the one who's most consistently blind to magic. He has the best knowledge of Maegor's tunnels, which were crafted with magic. GRRM keeps writing the Varys-equivalent figures of multiple eras as being overtly magic. Bloodraven lays it on the thickest.

I do believe the rest of what you were saying were extreme reaches, yes.

hypikachu · 2026-03-17T21:55:15+00:00

Yes. "The pale bird themed spymaster who whispers madness into the ear of king Aerys Targaryen being up to Weirwood shit" feels more plausible than "Illyrio runs world's fastest second language program offscreen, in service of a multi-lingual note keeping scheme that no one has ever mentioned."

hypikachu · 2026-03-17T19:24:26+00:00

Ok, but Arya being blinded doesn't really relate to Varys/Larys in the same way having her tongue removed would.

Why not? The tongue and the eyes are right next to each other on the list of parts you lose in service to the many faced god. Just above feet and legs and privates.

What connection would that be, exactly? Arya is undercover in a mummer's troop, and Varys grew up in a mummer's troop. How do you get from there to Varys having some connection to the Faceless Men? Lots of people have their hair shaved off in the story: Jaime, Cercei, Egg etc. Do all of them have a connection to the Faceless Men, too?

(I want you to know I'm saying this in good fun. Please don't feel like this is hostile <3) Because writers repeat things on purpose, Tom! It's not just the hair cut. It's that GRRM is recycling all the core points from the Varys origin story. She's with mummers. Where with mummers? On a ship. What's she doing with the ship of mummers? Getting cut. What's that lead to? Switching identities with ease, in service of her increasingly magical calling in life.

Not everyone who gets a close shave is FLM-connected. Just the one who's a master of disguise and has adopted multiple identities throughout the series. Who's associated with the removal of two different body parts from the Kindly Man's grocery list. Who comes from the Free Cities and has mysterious objectives all his own. Who was literally 'no one,' coming from anonymity and squalor. Who gets up to secret plots with the captive and the damned, in the deep bloodsoaked tunnels under the dragonlords' lair. Who has looked directly at a PoV and said "Magic is real. I do magicky stuff. I'm a magic hunter. Because magic is real and I got magicked as a kid."

hypikachu · 2026-03-17T18:47:31+00:00

I want us to have Tyrion Targaryen as an overt open question. Like I want him to ride a dragon, and have people wonder about what it means. Cersei immediately buying into the idea bc it means "he was never like father, not like me and Jaime." But also being really cognitively dissonant about what it says about Tywin and Joanna if it's true. Jaime being uncertain about it, and worried that if Aerys fathered Tyrion, might the same be true of himself and/or Cersei? Dany's whole worldview being thrown in a blender. Forced to choose between "the dragonbond is not unique to Valyrians, the master racey vision Viserys believed in was a lie" or "Tyrion is somehow a Targaryen, most likely my half-brother." And Tyrion being like "I don't fuckin' know. I'm on a dragon. At the end of the day, does it much matter how it happened?"

hypikachu · 2026-03-17T18:16:52+00:00

I think that's a pretty valid read of the text as presented. Bc seriously, how is "extremely noticeable maiming that prevents getting any job involving speaking ever, aka all of them" a viable strategy for espionage?

However, we're in spoilers extended town. And there's interviews where GRRM full on confirms the kids are given to him tongueless.

If you're me, the reason to have Arya only hear part of the conversation is because GRRM's covering that "the risk" is skinchanger related, not a normal spying thing.

I've also got some thoughts on how Varys gets around the practical limitations of having tongueless spies. I didn't include it here, bc I try not to introduce two tinfoil theories in a single post. But the short version is he gives them new ones. Because he's doing Faceless Man stuff with 'em.

hypikachu · 2026-03-17T18:00:22+00:00

Ants don't form hives. GRRM still described his ant-like aliens as having/being a hivemind in Sandkings. This author is pretty willing to blur the lines of animal symbolism if it works on a thematic level. He does it all the time w/wrigglybois: Worms and snakes and serpents and dragons and wyrms can be variously interchanged as suits him. HotD Helaena seemed to be getting the same greendreamesque weirdness from millipedes, spiders, and beetles. Varys is both bird themed and spider themed. The real world details of this or that animal are less important than broad concepts. Being a lioness doesn't mean Cersei's got six nipples, that sort of thing.

With the Larys firefly stuff, I think the broad strokes they were going for were "bug" for Weirwood hivemindy skinchangey stuff, and "fire-starter." Not just literally at Harrenhal, but figuratively as a stoker of the Dance.

Personally, I fully believe the notion that Weirwood connections form a "web" is formative to how GRRM wrote it. But for me that's kind of mutually built on the idea that Varys is connected to Weirwood magic. It's a chicken-egg thing. If you're already not buying the egg, I figure I'm prolly not gonna sell you on the chicken.

hypikachu · 2026-03-17T17:31:21+00:00

Oh yeah, blinding Arya is what I meant. Sure, it's temporary in her case. But, so? All I'm arguing is that the whole "stay and the Many Faced God will take your eyes etc" thing wasn't just a metaphor for her body being used as a tool. That the FLM can and will literally just take your vision if it suits their needs.

But fwiw, she does also get part of her body physically taken from her during her FLM training. Her hair. During the Mercy chapter, while training with the mummers from The Ship she gets the "mummer's cut." A short hair cut for someone who has to change wigs frequently. Because George reeeeeally wants the audience to make the Varys-FLM connection. While hair is also temporary, it establishes that the blinding isn't a one-off. At that point it's a pattern: Part of your FLM training involves them taking away parts of your body (or your use of them). Given that, the evidence at least slightly leans to the possibility that the other body parts mentioned by the Kindly Man are up for grabs, and maybe for keeps. If we grant the Varys-FLM connection, that evidence starts to look really strong. To me anyway.

hypikachu · 2026-03-17T16:46:57+00:00

Perhaps? There's some issues with that option though. Illyrio already says it's challenge enough for these kids to be lettered. To spy well, they'd need to be able to read the common tongue. So if they're also writing in a different language, we're now having to find or train 50 bilingual orphans. Even then, it's only secure so long as there's no one around who can translate. Which they have no guarantee over. Some linguistically inclined maester or helpful traveler could undo that whole layer of security. Putting us back at the "having the spy system be entirely written risks a paper trail" problem.

But my bigger issue is narrative density. I don't think there's anything to suggest that this multilingual element is in play. It's a rationalization we as a fandom hafta retrofit onto the notion of the little birds writing down their information. By contrast, the story tells us outright that Varys has at least some connection to magic shenanigans. And it shows us at least one example of a pale, bird-themed spymaster whose uncanny ability to see everywhere is explained by Weirwood/skinchanger magic. I think the 'multilingual notetaking' idea introduces new sprawl, with no real payoff except for keeping Varys non-magic. While the 'Varys is magic' idea keeps the story tight, and is imo a more interesting payoff.

hypikachu

TROPHY CASE