“ The man had your coloring, a nose of the same shape, two ears that were not dissimilar, a long beard that could be trimmed and shaped like yours. You can be sure we tarred him well, and the onion shoved between his teeth served to twist the features. Ser Bartimus saw that the fingers of his left hand were shortened, the same as yours. The man was a criminal, if that gives you any solace. His dying may accomplish more good than anything he ever did whilst living.”
When Manderly mentions that, is that not supposed to bother the reader a little? From the sound of it Manderly executed what was possibly a thief not for the crime he committed, but to serve a purpose in his plan.
Isn’t that kind of Manderly’s whole shtick, though? Killing people and baking them into pies, then eating them and tricking their relatives into eating them, “had he lived he would have grown up to be a Frey,” etc.
The character of Wyman Manderly in ADWD is borrowing pretty heavily from Titus Andronicus – a tragic protagonist whose family has suffered, who no one takes seriously because he’s feigning disability, and who’s engaged in a grand guignol revenge against those who done him wrong.
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