Glamored Characters/Items (Spoilers Extended)
Glamored Characters/Items
In this post, I thought it would be interesting to look at the different potential glamored characters/items in the series.
Note: A glamor is different than the magic that Faceless Men use:
Mummers change their faces with artifice," the kindly man was saying, "and sorcerers use glamors, weaving light and shadow and desire to make illusions that trick the eye. These arts you shall learn, but what we do here goes deeper. Wise men can see through artifice, and glamors dissolve before sharp eyes, but the face you are about to don will be as true and solid as that face you were born with. Keep your eyes closed." She felt his fingers brushing back her hair. "Stay still. This will feel queer. You may be dizzy, but you must not move." -ADWD, The Ugly Little Girl
Mance Rayder (appears as Rattleshirt)
In order to trick people into thinking she gave Mance to the flames, a glamor was put on Mance to look like the wildling raider Rattleshirt aka The Lord of Bones:
Melisandre touched the ruby at her neck and spoke a word.
The sound echoed queerly from the corners of the room and twisted like a worm inside their ears. The wildling heard one word, the crow another. Neither was the word that left her lips. The ruby on the wildling's wrist darkened, and the wisps of light and shadow around him writhed and faded. -ADWD, Melisandre I
and:
"It is their eyes that should concern you, not their knives," she warned him.
"The glamor, aye." In the black iron fetter about his wrist, the ruby seemed to pulse. He tapped it with the edge of his blade. The steel made a faint click against the stone. "I feel it when I sleep. Warm against my skin, even through the iron. Soft as a woman's kiss. Your kiss. But sometimes in my dreams it starts to burn, and your lips turn into teeth. Every day I think how easy it would be to pry it out, and every day I don't. Must I wear the bloody bones as well?"
"The spell is made of shadow and suggestion. Men see what they expect to see. The bones are part of that." Was I wrong to spare this one? "If the glamor fails, they will kill you." -ADWD, Melisandre I
and:
The wildling wore a sleeveless jerkin of boiled leather dotted with bronze studs beneath a worn cloak mottled in shades of green and brown. No bones. He was cloaked in shadows too, in wisps of ragged grey mist, half-seen, sliding across his face and form with every step he took. Ugly things. As ugly as his bones. A widow's peak, close-set dark eyes, pinched cheeks, a mustache wriggling like a worm above a mouthful of broken brown teeth.
Melisandre felt the warmth in the hollow of her throat as her ruby stirred at the closeness of its slave. "You have put aside your suit of bones," she observed.
"The clacking was like to drive me mad." -ADWD, Melisandre I
Rattleshirt (appears as Mance)
In vice versa, we see Rattleshirt appear as Mance:
"She burned the Lord of Bones."
Jon Snow turned to Melisandre. "What sorcery is this?"
"Call it what you will. Glamor, seeming, illusion. R'hllor is Lord of Light, Jon Snow, and it is given to his servants to weave with it, as others weave with thread." -ADWD, Melisandre I
I love these quotes, because they sound like the ravings of a madman, when in fact they are true:
The wildling king recoiled from the sight. "No," he cried, "mercy. This is not right, I'm not the king, they—"
Ser Godry gave a pull on the rope. The King-Beyond-the-Wall had no choice but to stumble after him, the rope choking off his words. When he lost his feet, Godry dragged him the rest of the way. Mance was bloody when the queen's men half-shoved, half-carried him to the cage. A dozen men-at-arms heaved together to hoist him into the air. -ADWD, Jon III
and:
Inside his cage, Mance Rayder clawed at the noose about his neck with bound hands and screamed incoherently of treachery and witchery, denying his kingship, denying his people, denying his name, denying all that he had ever been. He shrieked for mercy and cursed the red woman and began to laugh hysterically. -ADWD, Jon III
Stannis' sword (appears as Lightbringer)
Stannis' followers believe (or pretend to believe) that his sword is Lightbringer:
Queen Selyse was adamant. "None of these was the chosen of R'hllor. No red comet blazed across the heavens to herald their coming. None wielded Lightbringer, the red sword of heroes. And none of them paid the price. Lady Melisandre will tell you, my lord. Only death can pay for life." -ASOS, Davos V
and:
Lightbringer still glowed ruddy hot, but the flames that clung to the sword were dwindling and dying. By the time the song was done, only charwood remained of the gods, and the king's patience had run its course. He took the queen by the elbow and escorted her back into Dragonstone, leaving Lightbringer where it stood. The red woman remained a moment to watch as Devan knelt with Byren Farring and rolled up the burnt and blackened sword in the king's leather cloak. The Red Sword of Heroes looks a proper mess, thought Davos. -ACOK, Davos I
but Maester Aemon sees through (no pun intended) the glamor:
"No," the old man said. "It must be you. Tell them. The prophecy . . . my brother's dream . . . Lady Melisandre has misread the signs. Stannis . . . Stannis has some of the dragon blood in him, yes. His brothers did as well. Rhaelle, Egg's little girl, she was how they came by it . . . their father's mother . . . she used to call me Uncle Maester when she was a little girl. I remembered that, so I allowed myself to hope . . . perhaps I wanted to . . . we all deceive ourselves, when we want to believe. Melisandre most of all, I think. The sword is wrong, she has to know that . . . light without heat . . . an empty glamor . . . the sword is wrong, and the false light can only lead us deeper into darkness, -AFFC, Samwell IV
Melisandre (likely much older than she appears)
While not confirmed if we look at the below quotes (and combine with the events of the show/her almost flawless appearance), it is likely that Melisandre is using a glamor to appear younger/beautiful:
R'hllor spoke to his chosen ones through blessed fire, in a language of ash and cinder and twisting flame that only a god could truly grasp. Melisandre had practiced her art for years beyond count, and she had paid the price. There was no one, even in her order, who had her skill at seeing the secrets half-revealed and half-concealed within the sacred flames. -ADWD, Melisandre I
and:
His hands were shaking, but he made himself be strong. A maester of the Citadel must not be afraid. The wine was sour on his tongue. He let the empty cup drop from his fingers to shatter on the floor. "He does have power here, my lord," the woman said. "And fire cleanses." At her throat, the ruby shimmered redly. -ACOK, Prologue
Alys Rivers & Her "Dragon"
I am a big proponent of the theory that the dragon Alys has isn't really a dragon, just a glamor she is using on Caraxes' corpse (who managed to drag himself out of the God's Eye and onto the shore near Harrenhal before dying. That said let's look at what happens here:
The next day, a thirty-third made his appearance. Having been captured with a dozen others, he had been forced to watch them die by torture one by one before being turned loose to deliver a warning. “I’m to tell you what she said,” he gasped, “but you can’t laugh. The widow put a curse on me. Any man o’ you laughs, I die.” When Ser Damon assured him that no one was going to laugh at him, the messenger said, “Don’t come again unless you mean to bend your knees, she says. Any man who comes near her walls will die. There’s power in them stones, and the widow’s woken it. Seven save us all, she has a dragon. I seen it.”
The name of the messenger is lost to us, along with the name of the man who laughed. But someone did, one of Lord Darry’s men. The messenger looked at him, stricken, then clutched at his throat and began to wheeze. Unable to draw breath, he was dead in moments. Supposedly the imprints of a woman’s fingers could be seen upon his skin, as if she had been in the room, choking him.
If interested: The Witch Queen of Harrenhal: Alys Rivers & Alys Rivers & Shadowbabies
Bloodraven (Ser Maynard Plumm)
During the Mystery Knight, we meet the hedge knight known as Ser Maynard Plumm:
"Distantly," confessed Ser Maynard, a tall, thin, stoop-shouldered man with long straight flaxen hair, "though I doubt that His Lordship would admit to it. One might say that he is of the sweet Plumms, whilst I am of the sour." Plumm's cloak was as purple as name, though frayed about the edges and badly dyed. A moonstone brooch big as a hen's egg fastened it at the shoulder. Elsewise he wore dun-colored roughspun and stained brown leather. -The Mystery Knight
and:
Dunk whirled. Through the rain, all he could make out was a hooded shape and a single pale white eye. It was only when the man came forward that the shadowed face beneath the cowl took on the familiar features of Ser Maynard Plumm, the pale eye no more than the moonstone brooch that pinned his cloak at the shoulder. -The Mystery Knight
there is plenty of great writing alluding to it as well:
Aegon the Unworthy had bedded half the maidens in the realm and fathered bastards on the lot of them, supposedly. Worse, the old king had legitimized them all upon his deathbed; the baseborn ones born of tavern wenches, whores, and shepherd girls, and the Great Bastards whose mothers had been highborn. "We'd all be bastard sons of old King Aegon if half these tales were true."
"And who's to say we're not?" Ser Maynard quipped. -The Mystery Knight
Especially if you look at this post: The Great Writing Around Bloodraven/Ser Maynard Plumm
If interested: A Thousand Eyes and One: Informants & Disguises of Bloodraven
Future Glamors/Final Thoughts
- So far we have seen rubies and a moonstone brooch potentially used and also the possibilities from the Mel quote (hank of hair, etc.):
"The bones help," said Melisandre. "The bones remember. The strongest glamors are built of such things. A dead man's boots, a hank of hair, a bag of fingerbones. With whispered words and prayer, a man's shadow can be drawn forth from such and draped about another like a cloak. The wearer's essence does not change, only his seeming." -ADWD, Melisandre I
If you are interested: Mel's Glamor Quote
- Shiera Seastar has mismatched eyes that match her necklace (pretty unlikely imo)
If interested: All Magic has a Cost
TLDR: A list of some of the glamors/potential glamors used in the series.
Posted Feb 9, 2023, 2:42 PM UTC