#squaringthecircle

When I reached the end of ASOS, I wondered how GRRM would be able to keep Jaime and Brienne’s Chemical Wedding connection going when they were far apart.  In Brienne III of A Feast for Crows, he did it through Brienne’s memories, as I explain here:

https://argentvive.tumblr.com/post/175558769035/jaime-and-brienne-baby-fever

In Brienne IV, GRRM gives us Brienne’s memories of Jaime again, but he adds an action that recalls their time together, especially Jaime’s maiming: he shows us Brienne deploying Oathkeeper lethally for the first time, in self-defense but also to avenge Jaime.

The scene is not on the show, but this screencap gives you the general idea.  (Podrick is an eight-year-old boy in the book, however.)

Brienne is still in search of Sansa and Arya when she gets news of a sighting of two girls accompanied by a fool, who she thinks might be Dontos.  (She doesn’t know that Dontos has already been killed by Littlefinger.)  So she enlists the help of a local rogue, Nimble Dick, to guide her to the Whispers at Crackclaw Point.

The days-long ride to the castle gives Brienne lots of time to ponder her distant and recent past.  After a couple of incidental references to Jaime, we get her point of view on the critical duel with Loras, which led to Renly naming her to his Kingsguard:

<Loras Tyrell had been the last to face her wroth that day. He’d never courted her, had hardly looked at her at all, but he bore three golden roses on his shield that day, and Brienne hated roses.  The sight of them had given her a furious strength. She went to sleep dreaming of the fight they’d had, and of Ser Jaime fastening a rainbow cloak about her shoulders.>

This is pretty obvious: in her dream, Brienne has now replaced Renly, the first man she loved, the man she pledged to die for, with Jaime.   Note, again, the similar theme in Jaime and Brienne’s dreams of each other.  In Jaime’s descending to the abyss dream the first night out of Harrenhal, he dreams of Brienne defending and protecting him.  In Brienne’s dream, she has the same role.  Neither of these dreams are in the show. The writers have to find other ways to show how Jaime and Brienne fill each other’s thoughts.

As Brienne’s party slog on through the rain, she thinks of Jaime again.

<Would that Jaime had come with me, she thought . . . but he was a knight of the Kingsguard, his rightful place was with his king.  Besides, it was Renly that she wanted. I swore I would protect him, and I failed. Then I swore I would avenge him, and I failed at that as well. I ran off with Lady Catelyn instead, and failed her too. The wind had shifted, and the rain was running down her face.”>

More confusing Jaime and Renly here.  She’s not ready to admit to herself that she wants Jaime now, so she tells herself “it was Renly that she wanted.”  She recalls that she failed in her duties to protect and avenge Renly.  That’s a bit of foreshadowing that she WILL protect and avenge Jaime.  

The rain is relentless in this chapter.  As I explain in my long post about the rain in Pullman’s La Belle Sauvage and in Arya and Sandor’s trek to the Twins, the flood is a symbol for the nigredo, the first stage of the Opus alchymicum, so perhaps we are to think Brienne is beginning her own set of trials at this point.  

The next reminder of Jaime actually comes from Nimble Dick, who starts singing “The Bear and the Maiden Fair,” which surely has to be considered Jaime and Brienne’s song at this point.

Brienne starts to think back on her training.

<Her old master-at-arms had always questioned whether she was hard enough for battle. “You have a man’s strength in your arms,” Ser Goodwin had said to her more than once, “but your heart is as soft as any maid’s. It is one thing to train in the yard with a bunted sword in hand, and another to drive a foot of sharpened steel into a man’s gut and see the light go out of his eyes.”>

Most obviously, this is foreshadowing that Brienne’s “softness” will soon be tested.  But also, alchemically, this is the first time I’ve noticed her being marked as heart.  Incidental mention, perhaps?

They finally reach the Whispers.  GRRM lays out the geometry for squaring the circle, signaling that a transformative moment is coming.  

<They made a circuit [i.e., circle] of the walls. The castle had been triangular, with square towers at each corner.>

Recall this alchemy emblem from Atalanta fugiens, which I’ve posted many times:

Brienne senses danger and tells Podrick to bring her Oathkeeper. 

Pyg and Shagwell and the remnant of the Brave Companions appear.  (Shagwell is the fool who had been sighted, not Dontos.)  Shagwell kills Dick with a Morningstar.

<There was a sickening crunch. In the silence that followed, Brienne could hear the sound of her own heart.>

This is the second marker of heart for Brienne.  Perhaps not incidental then, though has Jaime ever been marked as mind?

In the ensuing conversation Timeon tells Brienne that her biting of Vargo Hoat’s ear has led to putrefaction--”His ear turned black and started leaking pus.”  Even more satisfying, the Mountain “killed him piece by piece...a hand one day, a foot the next, lopped off neat and clean.”

So Vargo Hoat, the brigand who had ordered Jaime’s maiming just for sport, suffers the same fate, but even worse, and is finally killed.  

When the gang  start to threaten Brienne with rape, she finally attacks.  Pyg is her first kill. 

<I did not flinch, she thought as blood ran red down her cheek. Did you see, Ser Goodwin?>

Next comes Timeon.

<Oathkeeper was alive in her hands. She had never been so quick. The blade became a grey blur. He wounded her in the shoulder as she came at him, but she slashed off his ear and half his cheek, hacked the head off his spear, and put a foot of rippled steel into his belly....>

Timeon pulls out a dagger, “so Brienne cut his hand off. That one was for Jaime.”

So there it is.  Brienne has avenged Jaime--consciously and deliberately.  She has acted for him, in his stead, with the sword he gave her.  They remain conjoined by Oathkeeper.  

Shagwell is still alive, so she orders him to dig a grave for Nimble Dick.

<”I have no spade.”

“You have two hands.” One more than you left Jaime.

“Why bother? Leave them for the crows.”

“Timeon and Pyg can feed the crows.”>

This short conversation gives us one more reminder of Jaime’s maiming and a repeat allusion to the book’s title, A Feast for Crows.  This is Shagwell’s last bit of dialogue--when he tries to hit her with a rock, she stabs him to death.  But she is crying; killing brings her no joy;

<The sobs that Brienne heard were all her own. When she realized that, she threw down her knife and shuddered.>

A Public Partridge Service Announcement!

The Partridge Family Temple supports Transformation Rights. It’s not a popular subject and causes outright outrage and confusion. The Partridge Family Temple understands and welcomes anyone who would like to experience Transformation.

Unfortunately The Partridge Family Temple understands that many people do not support Transformation Rights. When Jack Tripper lived with Chrissy and Janet, Mr. Roper constantly wanted Jack to transform into a straight man so he could kick him out and try to mentally and spiritually molest the inhabitants of that peaceful apartment. Mr. Roper would never support a hermetically sealed bathroom. But Jack Tripper was an amazing cook and you need to be an amazing cook to transform lead into gold.

One day Jack Tripper prepared a Squared the Circle Casserole for supper for Chrissy and Janet and Janet gave Mrs. Roper some leftovers. When Mr. Roper ate the leftovers, he was transformed and became Mr. Furley. In fact when he woke up, Mrs. Roper was no longer there nor were her robes. If you’d like to know more, there are caves holding Dead Sea Scrolls that no one yet has found.

Keith Partridge and Laurie Partridge are Brother and Sister but they are also so much more. If you have a microscope and you put a drop of honey on it, you’l see millions of Keiths and Lauries having sex as the honey drop grows bigger and stickier with Transformation.

As Transformation Rights cause more and more unrest, The Partridge Family Temple beseeches you to meditate upon a Man who stood in an empty field in Anaheim and saw something where people saw nothing. This Man who ate chili from a can saw a Kingdom and so he Transformed these acres of land into a little place you may have heard about called Disneyland.

UN FACT: Some people, plants and animals don’t need to Transform. They are perfect the way they are.

UN FACT: Brown Goblins do not like Transformation and are openly hostile to it’s teachings and application.

UN FACT: Come and knock on our door… (Come and knock on our door) We’ve been waiting for you…. (We’ve been waiting for you) Where the kisses are hers and hers and his, Three’s company too.

Shirley Partridge wants everyone to remember that Three’s Company is TWO. And that’s why it’s ONE.

We love the gilt design on this publisher’s binding from 1854, found on The Measure of the Circle by John Davis. 

Squaring the circle was proven to be impossible in 1882, twenty-eight years after the publication of this book.