A Dance With Dragons Symbols, Allegory and Motifs

A Dance With Dragons Symbols, Allegory and Motifs

The Pork Pies at Bolton wedding

Wyman Manderly has three huge pork pies served to Roose Bolton during the wedding of Ramsey Bolton to Arya Stark. The pies are hinted to be made of the three missing Freys, Rhaegar, Symond and Jared, who had gone to Wyman Manderly to present to him the conditions of the alliance of the Manderlys to Boltons and had disappeared while returning to Winterfell. This theory is strengthened with Manderly’s mention of the song of Rat Cook, a cook at Night’s Watch who served a king his son in a pie and was cursed to become a rat. The pies are a symbol of the discreet resistance Manderly and other lords are building to defy Boltons and the Freys.

Tyrion’s Mushrooms

While at Illyrio’s house, Tyrion observes some mushrooms and deduces that they might be poisonous. He picks them up to use them sometime later. At this point, Tyrion is running for his life after murdering his father, he has a price on his head, he is guilty for misunderstanding his wife. The mushrooms could be an exit if he gets anymore distraught of his life. After his journey to find Daenerys and realising the edge he could have for knowing the identity of Aegon, he decides to live. At this point, the mushrooms can become a deadly tool for him.

Daenerys’ Floppy Ears

Daenerys, after winning Meereen, tries to adopt the Ghiscari culture as a measure to not appear as an alien conqueror. Her step was taken to make the subjects see her as one of their own and not some plunderer from outside. It is for this measure, she decides to marry Hizdhar zo Loraq, a Ghiscari nobleman as a political alliance to the resisting publice. She also starts to wear the traditional Ghiscari attire, however, it is during the fighting in the pits, she realises her folly. She decides to not to bow down to every demand of Ghiscari nobles and decides to rule as her own judgement. As a resistance, she removes the veil and tokar and decides to not witness the carnage of the fighting pits. This is a symbol to her decision to rule as a queen and not the wife to a Ghiscari man.

Theon’s name from weirwood tree

As Theon contemplates his life in Winterfell as a play toy for Ramsey Bolton who tortures him into submission, he hears a voice from the weirwood tree. At this point in the story, Ramsey has bear enough of Ramsey’s cruelties. He has almost forgotten his identity as the young prince of the Iron Islands and begins to think of himself as Reek, a name given to him by Ramsey. He has been castrated, denied basic rights like hygiene and freedom of speech. As he stands in front of the weirwood tree, the gods of Winterfell, he contemplates his life and realises the wrongs he has done and asks for forgiveness from the gods, he hears a voice calling his name Theon, which makes him realise who he is and restores his faith in himself.

Cersei’s walk of shame

Cersei agrees to confess her infidelity with Lancel and some minor charges, but she is asked to walk to the Red Keep naked and shaved, supposedly as a symbol of being reborn. Cersei’s walk of shame brings many thoughts to her, primary of being exposed and ridiculed. To Cersei, the walk of shame is an incident that she thinks of as the biggest blow to her.

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