So I’ve found several posts about the identity of the Perfumed Seneschal, but I have one in mind that I’ve not seen suggested before (please message me if I am wrong so I can give credit where it is due). The main contribution I am making to this is that I am synthesizing a bunch of other folk’s ideas, ideas that I think have some merit, to come up with one more suggestion for the identity of Dany’s melly advisor.
What I’ve mostly seen suggested are listed below:
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Reznak
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Someone from the ship “Selaesori Qhoran,” Tyrion or Moqorro.
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Varys
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Illyrio
These are all good, but here’s the thing: Dany doesn’t need to be warned against any of these people. They are all suspicious as hell! They’re also obvious candidates, so, potentially, GRRM would like to fake us out to think of them, while another will hold the title. I am going to suggest one that is a bit of a stretch and a bit tinfoily, but not impossible, so please bear with me. Maester Aemon.
Now, I know he’s dead, but in this story, that can be a temporary situation. Before I go into how this could be, I’ll discuss why he is a good candidate.
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He is the type of lifeline Dany would dream to have, a wise old Targaryen to advise her. One who has had the dragon dreams.
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He is a maester; she will know that she needs to trust her maester if she wishes to return to Westeros.
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The word maester is a synonym to seneschal (advisor, magister, qhoran, steward, maester)
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If he shows up as her advisor, she should beware big time, making Quaithe’s warning real and dire.
Imagine he is presented to her as her maester sent from the citadel, but it’s actually Marwyn talking through Aemon’s reanimated corpse! Maywyn is so mysterious. I don’t know for sure, but I get the feeling from several theories (including from u/M_Tootles) that Marwyn is probably a Dornish agent and no friend to the dragons, even if he seems to be legitimately a fan of magic.
OK. So you say, how could this possibly be? First, credit to Preston Jacobs for pointing out that Aemon’s body likely remains on the Cinnamon Wind, although the gathered quotes and analysis below are my own work (again if someone else deserves some attribution here, too, let me know). Here’s the evidence:
We know his body hasn’t been decaying, it’s preserved in a cask of blackbelly rum (A real brand, credit to u/Prof_Cecily):
He will still burn, Sam thought miserably, only now I have to do it. The Targaryens always gave their fallen to the flames. Quhuru Mo would not allow a funeral pyre aboard the Cinnamon Wind, so Aemon’s corpse had been stuffed inside a cask of blackbelly rum to preserve it until the ship reached Oldtown.
So, if revived by some form of necromancy (similar to what Qybyrn, Marwyn’s pupil, is doing to the Mountain), his body may not look extremely dead, and most of his memories would also likely be preserved. Secondly, the scent of the rum will make his body perfumed, no doubt. This makes him a literal perfumed seneschal, albeit not a living one. Surely there’s no evidence that this happened, but there is a bit of foreshadowing that I’ll get to later. [Side note: might Dany be the one to finally burn him?]
OK but surely his body was taken off the Cinnamon Wind in Oldtown? Didn’t Sam make sure of this? Well… this is what he told Gilly as he left the boat:
Sam used the time to explain his plans to Gilly. “First the Citadel, to present Jon’s letters and tell them of Maester Aemon’s death. I expect the archmaesters will send a cart for his body. Then I will arrange for horses and a wagon to take you to my mother at Horn Hill. I will be back as soon as I can, but it may not be until the morrow.”
“The morrow,” she repeated, and gave him a kiss for luck.
But the only archmaester he told was Marwyn. When he was waiting to talk to the acting seneschal, Alleras intercepts him and takes him to Marwyn:
Alleras listened intently. He blinked from time to time, but he never laughed and never interrupted. When Sam was done he touched him lightly on the forearm with a slim brown hand and said, “Save your penny, Sam. Theobald will not believe half of that, but there are those who might. Will you come with me?”
Then after telling Marwyn the tale, Marwyn immediately goes to the docks and takes the Cinnamon Wind to Slaver’s bay.
“What will you do?” asked Alleras, the Sphinx.
“Get myself to Slaver’s Bay, in Aemon’s place. The swan ship that delivered Slayer should serve my needs well enough. The grey sheep will send their man on a galley, I don’t doubt. With fair winds I should reach her first.” Marwyn glanced at Sam again, and frowned. “You . . . you should stay and forge your chain. If I were you, I would do it quickly. A time will come when you’ll be needed on the Wall.” He turned to the pasty-faced novice. “Find Slayer a dry cell. He’ll sleep here, and help you tend the ravens.”
“B-b-but,” Sam sputtered, “the other archmaesters . . . the Seneschal . . . what should I tell them?”
“Tell them how wise and good they are. Tell them that Aemon commanded you to put yourself into their hands. Tell them that you have always dreamed that one day you might be allowed to wear the chain and serve the greater good, that service is the highest honor, and obedience the highest virtue. But say nothing of prophecies or dragons, unless you fancy poison in your porridge.” Marwyn snatched a stained leather cloak off a peg near the door and tied it tight. “Sphinx, look after this one.”
“I will,” Alleras answered, but the archmaester was already gone. They heard his boots stomping down the steps
A few paragraph’s later Sam interacts with a glass candle.
Alleras nodded at the glass candle.
Sam stared at the strange pale flame for a moment, then blinked and looked away. Outside the window it was growing dark.
Note that he immediately notices after looking at the candle for “a moment” that they sky had darkened. Does this imply that that moment was actually several hours, enabling Marwyn to depart before Sam can come to his wits and check on the Cinnamon Wind? I think it does.
So, with this evidence that Sam is in shock at everything in Marwyn’s office and then possibly hypnotized by the glass candle, it’s clear to me that he didn’t have a chance to make sure that the books, Mance’s son, Gilly, and Maester Aemon’s body do indeed leave the ship before it departs.
I doubt that any of them left the boat; who would have seen to it? The sailors would prioritize loading supplies and unloading commercial goods. Among those things I mentions, only the books had value, but only the Citadel. The only archmaester that knew of either Aemon’s body or the books was Marwyn, and I believe he’d have a wish to keep both.
As to Gilly and Mance’s son, the “tomorrow” that Sam promised Gilly, simply never happened before the ship left, so she was probably in her cabin (sleeping?) when the ship left port. In fact, we have earlier foreshadowing for Gilly and the babe might remain onboard.
He considered begging Kojja Mo and her father to take the wildling girl with them to the Summer Isles. That path had its perils too, however. When the Cinnamon Wind left Oldtown, she would need to cross the Redwyne Straits again, and this time she might not be so fortunate. What if the wind died, and the Summer Islanders found themselves becalmed? If the tales he’d heard were true, Gilly would be carried off for a thrall or salt wife, and the babe was like to be chucked into the sea as a nuisance.
Finally, Aemon wanted to go there, so there is foreshadowing for him going to Slaver’s Bay, too, and Sam likely told Marwyn this, or Alleras or Marwyn used the glass candle to learn of Aemon’s wish.
Daenerys is the one, born amidst salt and smoke. The dragons prove it.” Just talking of her seemed to make him stronger. “I must go to her. I must. Would that I was even ten years younger.”
Indeed, would that he were 30 years younger. Alas, he’s dead… but he may still be going there, though not willingly.
Regardless of how Marwyn learned of Aemon’s intentions, this knowledge could plant the seed of an idea that might hatch along the voyage, use Aemon to gain Daenerys trust. We know that Mirri Maz Durr and Qybyrn can animate with blood magic, I think the mage can, too.
An animated Aemon would seemingly be a prized advisor for Dany, a maester, a Targaryen. Sorry if you think this is ridiculous. I don’t. This post is in earnest. I am quite concerned that Marwyn will use Aemon’s corpse to gain Daenerys’s trust. What he’ll do with it, who can say? I question if his counsel will be in her best interest, though.
TL;DR There are lot’s of perfumed seneschals, but the one Quaithe is warning Dany about might be Maester Aemon, reanimated and puppeted by Marwyn. This would not end well.
Side note: I’ll mention that u/IllyrioMoParties comment suggests that once removed from the rum, Aemon may start to decay as the alcohol evaporated off, which might necessitate perfume to mask the rot, using evidence of his namesake’s own perfume that Dany definitely notices.
The Green Bard 