Patchface's First Song Explained (Song of Ice and Fire theory)

Patchface was left out of the TV show Game of Thrones but in the Song of Ice and Fire books he has a creepy role as a prophetic jester who can sing songs that tell the future but no one can understand him.

Today we look at the idea that his first song might in fact have been talking about the direct end game of how to deal with the others and what the others want.

The shadows come to dance my lord
The shadows come to stay my lord

[myujmes]

There's something really cute about imagining patchface dancing and singing for the Others at a feast

[writernightly]

Some other things to look into for the series as a whole:

Hadrian's wall was built by the Romans, who famously crucified slaves in long lines. (see Appian Way, 200km of slaves nailed to trees). (They crucified Christ himself obviously, which in the bible caused him to become Firstborn from the Dead). So it stands he could have got the idea for the ice wall as using a wall of crucified immortal slaves to keep out the others, which is the two major sins of human empire, otherdom, and slavery.

Flayed men are often depicted as crucified. Boltons flayed the Starks when they were at war, and even wore the Starks skin. It's not a new theory that they were doing this to try to steal the Stark's powers. It's possible they got the idea from seeing or hearing about the crucifixion of the others and the use of a knife (like we saw in the show.) They could have thought the Starks stole their power from the Others, and so they can steal it too. And maybe it even can work, because the Starks banned the practice when they took over.

It might be they were actually trying to steal the power of immortality, which is tied into Roose Boltons weird vampiric nature. It's also worth noting the Night's King is suggested to be a Bolton, I wonder why?

In Elden Ring, which George wrote the lore for, Queen Marika, part of the final boss, is trapped inside a giant world tree, and is crucified, but not dead. (Look her up and she will likely be in her crucified pose). There is a network of trees in the world that trap souls upon death, preventing the gift of true death (in the game called destined death) which is protected by the "born shadow" of Marika, her "brother", a wolf-man hybrid named Maliketh. Maliketh trapped destined death inside his "black-blade" which in-game looks like its made of obsidian.

Later, witches steal some of this gift of death in the form of obsidian looking "black knives" and kill immortal beings with them in some sort of ritual. The corpse of one of the Gods killed this way sprouts a weed called Deathroot throughout the tree network which causes bodies to rise from their graves.

One of the gods is cursed with eternal youth, and after trying to embed himself into one of the magic trees like bloodraven to cure his curse, is stolen by a guy called Mohg and taken deep underground, where he keeps the kid in a cocoon and drenches it in blood sacrifices. You visit these underground civilizations by going down "wells" which are all connected underground.

Also throughout the world are lots of crucified undead who wake up and howl in the night. So the motif of immortals being nailed to trees and cursed to stay there until death is given to them is common.

George grew up Catholic, which goes very hard on the crucifixion symbology. Visit any catholic house they prob have a bloody jesus hanging somewhere. This probably had an affect on George's ideas of religion and why he's so interested in this idea of crucifixion, immortality, and the idea of not dying actually being quite scary.

Theon was symbolically crucified by Ramsey Bolton, shown a fate worse than death, then was given a second life as Reek. He even says in ADwD that he is no longer afraid to die because there are worse fates. Of course we see he actually still wants to live and fights for his life when given the chance. Depicting an immortal or second life as a horror is a common Athiest interpretation as a way to cope with the idea of death, and I think George is very interested in it.

[myujmes]

Referring to the Others as shadows is just perfect reinforcement that shadowbinding is part of how wights and reanimated people are made

[davey]

Guest Right... The sons and sheep could be a metaphor for Food and Clothing.

i think it would be creepier patch face to talk with perfect eloquence during his meeting with the others

[terranmerritt]

In Dance someone at the Wall specifically asks Jon "if the Others turn up do you plan to offer them guest right as well?"

[illCMAC]

I like to think of everything Patchface says is from the perspective of a dead man, which is why the living cannot understand him.

[Rebel_Lord_Taron]

The seahorses could be Aurane waters Fleet....the mermaids the Maderleys and the Seashells they blow could be as you said the Horn of joramun because Sam fixed it and brought it back from Old Town with the valeryan fleet

[warpedwhimsical]

I like to imagine the feast that brings the Others under guest right being entirely attended by those who are unnaturally alive. These people would be able to sympathize with the Others’ plight the most if their goal really is just to be given the gift of death. The Others being the shadows of undying ones trapped in the wall, the undead Jon leading it, Patchface the undead fool for entertainment. It makes for a funny picture I would love to see the fan art that comes out of it haha. Melisandre could potentially be present as well since she’s clearly not alive via natural means.

Random side note but I’d be interested to hear how you think Euron ties into all this. Apologies if you already cover this in a later video!

[hitrapperandartistdababy]

I kinda wanna see Patchface just run towards the others, do a little dance, fall over and then just start twitching again in the the background as both the forces of the living and dead look at him like “Wtf?!”

[ashleyofnaath]

I think the aforementioned seashorses are the war drommunds Aurane Waters stole from Cersei; that they'll be used to ferry Stannis' camp somewhere (Dragonstone?), and the 'shells' are metaphors for Sybil Westerling (whose House's sigil features seashells). The Manderlys (mermaids) will announce their alliance with Stannis by publicly 'blowing the shells'- ie executing Sybil- for her betrayal. Perhaps that last bit is just my biased desire for her to get her comeuppance lol but essentially that's my interpretation of that riddle. Great video!!

[void.sawyer]

House manderly has a mer-person as a sigil. Blowing seashells idk

[denali]

2:12 universally agreed upon? It seems obvious to me he's talking about the shadowbinder that just moved in.

[jenniferpearce]

The Damphair will turn to worship Patchface as a prophet of the Undrowned God bringing Iron Men with him.

[Jacob-fzho]

Patchface is a servant of the merlings, not the others. The source of his visions come from those under the sea, literally, so how much do they know about the others and their exile from the weirwoods? It wasn't the others that kept Patchface alive for 3 days at sea and scrambled his brain. Aeron Greyjoy (Damphair) also had the same merling possession/drowning process occur and he believes that to be the drowned god. Maybe there's some intersection between squishers and others though, as the iron islanders have weirwood (naga bones on old wyk) from a giant ark/boat, and there's a lot of skinchangers among the iron islanders. There were first men on the iron islands before the Grey King/mariners came from the East (I believe it was Green Men from the isle of Leng, but it could have been great empire of the dawn) the two groups eventually started worshipping the drowned god (ie they were taken over by merling cults and were being bred/domesticated) and became the backwards Ironborn.

There's also the connection that legend says the hammer of the waters was brought down by the children of the forest in Moat Cailin, which is an abandoned Merling fortress (as are all the oily black stone cities such as Yeen, Pyke and Asshai). Why are the CotF being tied together with the merlings? Merlings are associated with bringing back great old ones and doing eldritch shit like breaking apart moons and summoning meteors/fists of the waters and causing long nights. Usually nature + eldritch themes don't go side-by-side like this

[KinoKong]

Seems like everyone else in this story wants to go back home. Dany, Tyrion, the Stark children, the Golden Company... it makes sense that the Others would also want to go home.

[jaykay]

Hmm, that passage reminds me more about Dany losing her baby when Mirry does magic to 'save' Drogo.

[WaywardWhiteWalker]

I like to think that there are many hive minds and they are aware of each other. I think Patchface is of the drowned god category and he can be sent visions of the same stuff other hive minds are sending to their peeps with abilities. It's all manipulations and lies. People are just pieces on the Cyvasse board to be played by these "beings" until there is some magic peak and the players make their moves. Maybe retake a physical form, get drunk and do some bang'n. It is pretty sweet. 
I think another comet is coming. A magical comet. Thats when the "They" make their moves. These guys are eons old and know all about the timing of the two or maybe three comets and the effects. You heard it here first.

[TheFriendlyAnarchist]

If no one else has pointed this out. Dany describes ships as horses that can run on the sea.

So the sea horses could be ships.

[carter]

@5:07 so what are your theories about Craster's sheep? Did you make a video about it?