#cragorn

[nogoodsheepstealing-greatgrandma]

[tearsdrownedyou]

Some men just want to watch the world burn

Here’s a selection of book quotes that develop Euron’s role as a bringer of chaos. He isn’t interested in ruling, he wants to take power so he can desecrate and destroy.

“Godless? Why, Aeron, I am the godliest man ever to raise sail! You serve one god, Damphair, but I have served ten thousand. From Ib to Asshai, when men see my sails, they pray.”

The priest raised a bony finger. “They pray to trees and golden idols and goat-headed abominations. False gods …”

“Just so,” said Euron, “and for that sin I kill them all. I spill their blood upon the sea and sow their screaming women with my seed. Their little gods cannot stop me, so plainly they are false gods. I am more devout than even you, Aeron. Perhaps it should be you who kneels to me for blessing.”

The Red Oarsman laughed loudly at that, and the others took their lead from him.

“Fools,” said the priest, “fools and thralls and blind men, that is what you are. Do you not see what stands before you?”

“A king,” said Quellon Humble. The Damphair spat, and strode out into the night.

Martin, George R.R.. A Feast for Crows (A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 4) (p. 294). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

As they neared the shore, he noticed a line of women and children herded up onto the deck of one of the great cogs. Some had their hands bound behind their backs, and all wore loops of hempen rope about their necks. “Who are they?” he asked the men who helped tie up their boat. “Widows and orphans. They’re to be sold as slaves.”

“Sold?” There were no slaves in the Iron Islands, only thralls. A thrall was bound to service, but he was not chattel. His children were born free, so long as they were given to the Drowned God. And thralls were never bought nor sold for gold. A man paid the iron price for thralls, or else had none. “They should be thralls, or salt wives,” Victarion complained.

“It’s by the king’s decree,” the man said.

“The strong have always taken from the weak,” said Nute the Barber. “Thralls or slaves, it makes no matter. Their men could not defend them, so now they are ours, to do with as we will.”

Martin, George R.R.. A Feast for Crows (A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 4) (p. 490). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

“I had forgotten what a small and noisy folk they are, my ironborn. I would bring them dragons, and they shout out for grapes.”

“Grapes are real. A man can gorge himself on grapes. Their juice is sweet, and they make wine. What do dragons make?”

“Woe.” The Crow’s Eye sipped from his silver cup. “I once held a dragon’s egg in this hand, brother. This Myrish wizard swore he could hatch it if I gave him a year and all the gold that he required. When I grew bored with his excuses, I slew him. As he watched his entrails sliding through his fingers he said, ‘But it has not been a year.’ ” He laughed. “Cragorn’s died, you know.”

Martin, George R.R.. A Feast for Crows (A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 4) (p. 498). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

From Asha’s POV:

If my father still lived, Moat Cailin would never have fallen. Balon Greyjoy had known that the Moat was the key to holding the north. Euron knew that as well; he simply did not care. No more than he cared what happened to Deepwood Motte or Torrhen’s Square. “Euron has no interest in Balon’s conquests. My nuncle’s off chasing dragons.” The Crow’s Eye had summoned all the strength of the Iron Isles to Old Wyk and sailed out into the deepness of the Sunset Sea, with his brother Victarion following behind like a whipped cur. There was no one left on Pyke to appeal to, save for her own lord husband. “We stand alone.”

Martin, George R. R.. A Dance with Dragons (A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 5) (p. 365). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Also from Asha:

“I think the Damphair’s dead. I think the Crow’s Eye slit his throat for him. Ironmaker’s search is just to make us believe the priest escaped. Euron is afraid to be seen as a kinslayer.”

“Never let my nuncle hear you say that. Tell the Crow’s Eye he’s afraid of kinslaying, and he’ll murder one of his own sons just to prove you wrong.” Asha was feeling almost sober by then. Tristifer Botley had that effect on her.

Martin, George R. R.. A Dance with Dragons (A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 5) (p. 374). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

How about something from Tyrion’s POV?

An empire built on blood and fire. The Valyrians reaped the seed they had sown. “Does our captain mean to test the curse?”

“Our captain would prefer to be fifty leagues farther out to sea, well away from that accursed shore, but I have commanded him to steer the shortest course. Others seek Daenerys too.” Griff, with his young prince. Could all that talk of the Golden Company sailing west have been a feint? Tyrion considered saying something, then thought better. It seemed to him that the prophecy that drove the red priests had room for just one hero. A second Targaryen would only serve to confuse them. “Have you seen these others in your fires?” he asked, warily.

“Only their shadows,” Moqorro said. “One most of all. A tall and twisted thing with one black eye and ten long arms, sailing on a sea of blood.”

Martin, George R. R.. A Dance with Dragons (A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 5) (p. 490). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. 

Euron explaining himself to Aeron in TWOW:

“Your victories are hollow. You cannot hold the Shields.”

“Why should I want to hold them?” His brother’s smiling eye glittered in the lantern light, blue and bold and full of malice. “The Shields have served my purpose. I took them with one hand, and gave them away with the other. A great king is open-­handed, brother. It is up to the new lords to hold them now. The glory of winning those rocks will be mine forever. When they are lost, the defeat will belong to the four fools who so eagerly accepted my gifts.” He moved closer. “Our longships are raiding up the Mander and all along the coast, even to the Arbor and the Redwyne Straits. The Old Way, brother.”

The relevant difference between Euron and Cersei is that Cersei doesn’t want the Seven Kingdoms turned to ash. Cersei is incompetent and narcissistic, but not nihilistic. Cersei thinks she can slaughter and torture and terrorize until everyone bows down to her, and once her power is undisputed, then somehow the chaos will resolve and Westeros will be stable and prosperous under Queen Cersei’s rule. 

Euron isn’t like that; for Euron, being in power is a means to an end, and the end is destruction. Euron’s plan is to take control just enough to make everything turn to shit. Basically, I think Euron sees himself as a god, and he has neither the skill set nor the temperament to be a god of creation, so instead he’ll be a god of annihilation. 

Within that framework, Cersei is a useful idiot. He can use her to help him get to power, and she’ll help him break and burn things in the process. Once he has what he needs from her, he will get rid of her. But first he’ll show her that everything she’s ever valued is worthless.

[poorquentyn]

What is Euron's obsession with ripping out people's tongues and when did? The murder of his younger half brother in the crib would imply that he's always had some obsession with silencing people but where does this obsession stem from?

(TWOW spoilers)

I don’t think Euron killed Robin to “silence” him, but yeah, given the name of Euron’s ship (and its figurehead), this is clearly an atrocity near and dear to Euron’s tentacled heart. 

There are several layers to this. One, of course, is purely sadistic: Euron finds intense gratification in hurting, humiliating, and subjugating people, raising (for example) Falia’s hopes high before bringing them crashing down. It’s common for abusers to demand silence and then take any deviation from that as an excuse to inflict pain. That he focuses specifically on removing tongues suggests that he’s hiding secrets; of course, as @nobodysuspectsthebutterfly pointed out, cutting out someone’s tongues doesn’t prevent them from communicating, but when taken in combination with the rarity of literacy, the fearful awe Euron instills in his crew (Cragorn, for example), and the ongoing mystery of where exactly Euron has and hasn’t been in his travels, I think it’s fair to say that silencing is his goal. “No one must ever know.” 

The last layer I’ll touch on here is religious: the silence of the gods.

“Who knows more of gods than I? Horse gods and fire gods, gods made of gold with gemstone eyes, gods carved of cedar wood, gods chiseled into mountains, gods of empty air…I know them all. I have seen their peoples garland them with flowers, and shed the blood of goats and bulls and children in their names. And I have heard the prayers, in half a hundred tongues. Cure my withered leg, make the maiden love me, grant me a healthy son. Save me, succor me, make me wealthy…protect me! Protect me from mine enemies, protect me from the darkness, protect me from the crabs inside my belly, from the horselords, from the slavers, from the sellswords at my door. Protect me from the Silence.”

“I think if I drowned you, you’ll stay drowned. All gods are lies, but yours is laughable. A pale white thing in the likeness of a man, his limbs broken and swollen and his hair flipping in the water while fish nibble at his face. What fool would worship that?”

“Harlon was my first. All I had to do was pinch his nose shut. The greyscale had turned his mouth to stone so he could not cry out. But his eyes grew frantic as he died. They begged me. When the life went out of them, I went out and pissed into the sea, waiting for the god to strike me down. None did.”

“Kneel, brother,” the Crow’s Eye commanded. “I am your king, I am your god. Worship me, and I will raise you up to be my priest.”

When Euron removes your tongue, he’s symbolically cutting you off from the gods, who now cannot hear your (vocalized) prayers, and he’s saying that those gods don’t exist anyway or they would’ve stopped him, so worship him instead.

[daenerysstrangersagain]

Cragorn Sounds Dragonbinder by Yoann Boissonnet

[poorquentyn]

PQ, do you think Euron will survive the apocalypse he's bringing? I feel like he's going to blow the horn, and that his blowing of the horn will lead to his demise somehow

It’s certainly possible, especially given the precedent of Cragorn and Dragonbinder, but I doubt it. As I’ve argued a couple times before, Euron is extremely useful to both Bran and Dany as a dark mirror, warning them by his example of where they could go if they fully embrace their worst instincts (RE “abomination” and “fire and blood,” respectively), and so I think his downfall will come as a result of them (separately) turning away from the abyss he represents. 

[poorquentyn]

I've been thinking about Euron and how (like Gabriel) he will blow the Horn of Joramun to bring down the Wall. Do you think this will change him physically? When Cragorn blew the dragon horn, he burned from the inside, but maybe this Horn will *change* him? I feel like he'll to begin turning into something more monstrous (cue the FINAL FORM jokes)

Entirely possible, given this: 

Beneath her coverlets she tossed and turned, dreaming that Hizdahr was kissing her…but his lips were blue and bruised, and when he thrust himself inside her, his manhood was cold as ice.

Of course, the Crow’s Eye may already be a touch post-human from sacrificing his fleet and the Redwynes’ (the “sea of blood” glimpsed by both Damphair and Moqorro). Euron’s characterization hinges on his desire to transcend humanity, from childhood forward: 

“When I was a boy, I dreamt that I could fly,” he announced. “When I woke, I couldn’t…or so the maester said. But what if he lied?”