Heresy 126

[Black Crow]

Another possibility is the birth of Jon Snow, or simply the return of magic that's enabling them to "bring the cold" to support another invasion attempt.

It's also possible that if the wall was some sort of agreement between men, the children, and the Others that somehow that agreement has been broken.

I think the birth of Jon Snow may be significant, but not in the way that the R+L=J crowd think. I'm still inclined to see Danaerys as Azor Ahai/Prince that was promised, and Jon born at the same time as the son of Winterfell who has to stop her.

That being said, I think we're also going to find there's a bigger coalition of interests and allegiances out there opposed to the return of the Dragons than might at first appear.

[TheButcherCrow]

Seriously. That was well put, TBC. :cheers:

Gratitude :cheers:

Fully agree.

But who/what created the first one?

Hint: at some point in time, the First Men abandoned their gods and followed those of the CotF. Nobody likes to be abandoned, gods even less.

The singers are quite simply "prime suspect numero uno" for creating the first WW, be it intentionally or not. As for the abandoned gods of the FM, it is my own personal belief that the all the "gods" are "shadows on the wall". They don't really exist, except from a certain perspective.

In my "world view" the Others were created by the old gods.The souls or spirits that were turned into the Others were the sacrificed or abandoned humans,a custom that the First Men brought with them to Westeros,a custom that neither the old gods or weirwoods wanted,indeed they abhorred it.

That these souls were turned into the Others was the price payed for bringing down the hammer of the waters.Luwin describes it as sorcery and sorcery is described several times in the books as "dueling with a glass sword"-there is no way to grip it safely.Magic on the scale of smashing a land bridge comes at a cost,using Martin's rules.The greenseers/Cotf may have asked for it,the old gods provided it and they provided the Others too.An unintended consequence.The sins of the fathers.And they have the powers that they have,dominion over Ice and the ability to bring babies (and I would suggest vulnerable adults *cough Jon Snow cough*) into their realm and raise the dead as their thralls.

So really all Bran has to do is put Humpty Dumpty back together again. :smug:

And yes,good post TBC.Some times I miss the like button....

Gratitude and I would call your post both extremely plausible and certainly in keeping with themes and motifs Martin has previously established. Not only does it sound right, it feels right too. I would add a note of caution about Bran. I'm probably wrong about this but I have a strange feeling that Bran is going to be asked/pressured/manipulated into "saving" the world in much the same way David Berkowitz "saved" his victims.

I also agree. Hats off TBC

Gratitude :cheers:

You know - one thing that has always struck me as... well, a bit irksome... is the notion that once you start leaving babies out in the woods regularly ("giv[ing them] to the wood"), then the Singers are no longer the best fit for the title "Children of the Forest." <_<

nice :bowdown:

:rofl:

And seriously, I'll just add to the chorus of applause for Butcher Crow's piece.

Whether its the Singers who are directly responsible is perhaps a different matter

Gratitude :cheers: Their culpability is still to be determined, to be sure, but I would say, "x000 years ago the Long Night happened, wherein man and singer` did whatever they needed to do in order to see another dawn.

[The Snowfyre Chorus]

...Way back at the time when Heresy started off there was a joke that perhaps this isn't going to be a question of the Dragons saving Westeros from the Others, but rather the Others saving Westeros from the Dragons. Very funny says you, but consider this:

The Targaryens, or at least some of them, have been obsessed with the Prince that was Promised prophecy. We know very little about it, but given that exchange between Mel and Maester Aemon its not unreasonable to suppose that its a child of the Azor Ahai prophecy, identifying the hero in question as a Targaryen prince.

So far so good.

Now whatever the intentions of what went down at Summerhall, it had one very important result - it put Aerys II on the Iron Throne. Aerys, as we know, had a son, Rhaegar, who convinced himself that he was the Prince that was Promised and when he found that he didn't fit decided to make him instead - hence the excitement in some quarters over the R+L=J business. But as Maester Aemon pointed out the translation [from what?] was dodgy and decided that Danaerys is the one.

Objectively, you see, this has a lot going for it. Danaerys is the daughter of Aerys and brother of Rhaegar. This means that she is of the same generation; an obvious point I know but Rhaegar must have based his identification of himself as the Prince on something, perhaps counting the generations from Raella or whatever, but making the same mistake as Maester Aemon in looking for a boy, ie; if its not him and can't be weedy little Viserys, he must have done his sums wrong and its down to him to raise up the Prince in the next generation. In other words he reckoned without Danaerys and she, as we know, not only fits all the criteria but has the dragons to prove it.

Indeed the objection out there in the forum to identifying Danaerys as Azor Ahai/the Prince that was Promised is that she fits the criteria too well and is therefore far too obvious.

But if Westeros is to be saved from Azor Ahai, rather than saved by Azor Ahai... then its nowhere near so "obvious".

So lets look at the saving. Is the significant trigger for things starting to wake up north of the Wall and for Craster to begin giving up his sons not Summerhall or the death of Lord Rickard [and Brandon] but the birth of Danaerys/Azor Ahai on Dragonstone.

There are a couple of other wrinkles which occur to me on this, including the storm on the night of her birth [an attempt to kill her off there and then?] but I'll put this out now and see if it might have legs.

I enjoy this kind of attempt to "work it out," and you've presented one possible twist here, BC. But this takes us back, I think - to the discussions we had around Heresy 104 concerning that "translation error." And what really stood out to me then (and still does) is the possibility, based on Maester Aemon's reasoning, that the "Prince that was Promised" should be more accurately understood as the "Dragon that was Promised." Maester Aemon concludes from this translational issue that he and Rhaegar, among others, had mistaken the gender of this promised figure - and that does feel like a nice twist. But it is also possible that "the dragon that was promised" meant neither "prince" nor "princess" to begin with... instead, it may simply have meant "dragon" all along.

I like this possibility, because it would mean that neither Aemon nor Mel have correctly solved the puzzle for us. And if this solution is correct - that "dragon" truly means just "dragon" - then Azor Ahai and the Dragon that was Promised are in fact separate figures. To me, that feels more satisfying... and more likely, given the sheer complexity of this overall tale. (I do want Martin to start pulling the threads together - it's time! - but given the number of cultures, prophecies, and storylines he's worked in... by the time we actually get to the end of all this, I expect to see multiple heroes and prophesied figures rather than just 2 or 3. And on top of that, I fully expect we'll find several characters who "fit" the prophecy for any given role...)

ETA: (Because it's not clear from the above...) If AAR and the DtwP are separate figures, it is still possible that both could figure into the same prophecies... without just being different names for the same person. The AAR prophecy, in particular, has room for both figures (and more): "Azor Ahai shall be born again amidst smoke and salt to wake dragons out of stone."

[alienarea]

Black Crow would say it was the singers, and still is the singers. I may agree with the first premise, that a singer created the first one, but I don't believe there are enough singers left to still be creating them. The Others are "creating" themselves now. They've been watching, and men have forgotten. Magic is rising, and they can use it to cover the world in darkness again, and march out against the Andals and the blasphemers of the Seven to restore the Old Gods to power over Westeros.

What puzzles me is that the current ones do not look like singers at all.

If the singers created the first one, that should look like a singer, shouldn't it? With the ice swords and camouflage armor size shouldn't matter (Yoda!).

If the first one looked like a singer

- why/since when do the current ones look like they do?

- why do the first ones hunt maids?

- why didn't Old Nan tell this?

My conclusion: the first ones looked like the current ones and therefore weren't created by singers.

Crackpot: maybe the ice spiders are frozen krakens? Eight legs all the same. The first ones could be Iron Islands side effects of the hammer. Would make sense with the drowned god, what is dead may never die, and the increasing number of Greyjoys.

[addicted to snow]

From Urrax

I don't think the moon cycles for Bran can be synched up with the outside world. As I recall, it's one of the features of Faerie that time moves there differently from the outer world. People spend a lifetime there and come back and find only a day has passed. I think something similar is happening with Bran.

I agree, and I don't think it's possible at this stage to really attempt to sync up Bran's timeline with the outside world. I was just offering my thoughts on AtS' idea of comparing moon cycles between Bran's journey and Val's trip to find Tormund.

From Wolfmaid

We agree to disagree and i'm cool with that :cheers:

As am I. Mayhaps we could both end up being wrong :cheers:

Arya's Bravosi chapters are also based on moon cycles… practically the same way that Bran's are… I don't see this meaning that time is moving differently

[Black Crow]

Arya's Bravosi chapters are also based on moon cycles… practically the same way that Bran's are… I don't see this meaning that time is moving differently

I don't think its a matter of time physically moving differently but rather how it is perceived.

As I recall from an earlier post the references to the moon indicate that thus far at least three months have passed since Bran entered the cave, yet without those references there no such sense of anything like that amount of time passing. It feels as though Bran has been down there for days or perhaps stretching it, a week or two, but certainly not months stretching into many months.

[Black Crow]

My conclusion: the first ones looked like the current ones and therefore weren't created by singers.

Ah but you see that's where I part company with TOJ because while I think that the Singers or their agents are creating the white walkers they are and always have been stealing human children as their changelings, not transforming themselves.

[wolfmaid7]

From Wolfmaid

We agree to disagree and i'm cool with that :cheers:

As am I. Mayhaps we could both end up being wrong :cheers:

Perhaps its a possibility for sure :cheers:

We can all agree:

Craster leaves his sons outside. He believes he is offering them to someone or something.

Those are the two indisputable facts in this discussion.

That established, either:

1. The boys die and play no further part in the story. Any suggestion to the contrary is a scarlet mackerel.

The boys are collected by someone or something.

So if it's one, then no more discussion is required. End of. Let's look at two then:

If two is correct then either:

1. The boys are killed by whatever takes them. End of story. Rouge kipper time.

The boys are used by whatever takes them.

Once again, two is considerably more interesting. If two is correct then it is not a stretch at all to say they are used to create new WW's. I will argue to the death that the exact manner of transformation/binding/sacrifice/bonding/alteration or whatever, is utterly unimportant. What's important is that the threat comes from within, while appearing for three books as if it comes from the very definition of "without". Indeed, it is still the generally held opinion that the WW are a separate race, come down from their snowy home to wreak havoc upon Westeros. Ladies & gentleman, it's crimson cod time.

So why am I so convinced by this? Well the innumerable hints within the text, the fact that it's outright stated by someone any sane person would discount immediately, that sort of thing :D But seriously, the "other as self" is so blatantly in evidence here. The first WW must have been FM, possibly children, possibly willing adult hosts. I mean, that has to be why they use kids right? No "sense of self" to fight against? If so, it doesn't preclude adults agreeing to "become" willingly, does it? So, the big bad enemy has always been ourselves.

It also feeds directly into the theme of "doing what it takes to survive", as anyone who would become a WW or give their children to them, must have been desperate.

To me, it really is that simple :dunno:

EDIT

As a side note, the WW are now reminding me a lot of The Unsullied.

I applaud this piece by you Butcher,i don't agree with all of it but i like something that you bring up because it is a point in my theory. I agree with you 100% with how you classify the Others as ourselves.This is the crux of the matter for me and it comes back again to GRRM's quote of Faulkner about nothing is worth writing more than the struggles of the human heart (Paraphrase).I disagree with you that if the babes are dead that's it because at the end of the day we have to contend with the fact that parents are abandoning their babes to the elements and i think the true reason is even more satisfying.Furthermore,death in this story isn't just death,it accoplishes something eventhough we maynot know what it is and there are many theories about that not all ending with them becoming the energy source for ww body suit because we are now down to 5 wws.We have yet to see more than that and i dearsay we are not going to get more.

For those thinking the Children were/are creating the Others, I think its a fair possibility that the Children aren't an entirely united front, all conforming to the same stance on how to deal with men. I'd once assumed this on my own, but after rereading Luwins quote from Clash, where he describes how the crannogmen of old grew close to the Children and were thus able to prevent having the hammer of waters destroy the neck the way it did the Arm of Dorne. I think this alone is enough to raise some questions, seeing as the crannogmen had learned enough of the Children's magic and "grew close" to them, and consequently were able to prevent the hammer of waters; it would seem as if some Children were living amongst the crannogmen while the hammer was being attempted to be brought down by different Children

Totally agree with this and i will draw from a tale of the American South West about the Talking Tree GRRM's backyard.Basically some of the people who chose not to get with the new way went underground while those who remain above became a new peoples. So a nice Crannog connection.

Indeed the objection out there in the forum to identifying Danaerys as Azor Ahai/the Prince that was Promised is that she fits the criteria too well and is therefore far too obvious.

But if Westeros is to be saved from Azor Ahai, rather than saved by Azor Ahai... then its nowhere near so "obvious".

So lets look at the saving. Is the significant trigger for things starting to wake up north of the Wall and for Craster to begin giving up his sons not Summerhall or the death of Lord Rickard [and Brandon] but the birth of Danaerys/Azor Ahai on Dragonstone.

There are a couple of other wrinkles which occur to me on this, including the storm on the night of her birth [an attempt to kill her off there and then?] but I'll put this out now and see if it might have legs.

I am interested to see how you develop Dany's birth as the trigger

I enjoy this kind of attempt to "work it out," and you've presented one possible twist here, BC. But this takes us back, I think - to the discussions we had around Heresy 104 concerning that "translation error." And what really stood out to me then (and still does) is the possibility, based on Maester Aemon's reasoning, that the "Prince that was Promised" should be more accurately understood as the "Dragon that was Promised." Maester Aemon concludes from this translational issue that he and Rhaegar, among others, had mistaken the gender of this promised figure - and that does feel like a nice twist. But it is also possible that "the dragon that was promised" meant neither "prince" nor "princess" to begin with... instead, it may simply have meant "dragon" all along.

I like this possibility, because it would mean that neither Aemon nor Mel have correctly solved the puzzle for us. And if this solution is correct - that "dragon" truly means just "dragon" - then Azor Ahai and the Dragon that was Promised are in fact separate figures. To me, that feels more satisfying... and more likely, given the sheer complexity of this overall tale. (I do want Martin to start pulling the threads together - it's time! - but given the number of cultures, prophecies, and storylines he's worked in... by the time we actually get to the end of all this, I expect to see multiple heroes and prophesied figures rather than just 2 or 3. And on top of that, I fully expect we'll find several characters who "fit" the prophecy for any given role...)

ETA: (Because it's not clear from the above...) If AAR and the DtwP are separate figures, it is still possible that both could figure into the same prophecies... without just being different names for the same person. The AAR prophecy, in particular, has room for both figures (and more): "Azor Ahai shall be born again amidst smoke and salt to wake dragons out of stone."

I wish we could look at this some more because i'm of he same mind here when it comes to AAR and TPTWP

[Black Crow]

I enjoy this kind of attempt to "work it out," and you've presented one possible twist here, BC. But this takes us back, I think - to the discussions we had around Heresy 104 concerning that "translation error." And what really stood out to me then (and still does) is the possibility, based on Maester Aemon's reasoning, that the "Prince that was Promised" should be more accurately understood as the "Dragon that was Promised." Maester Aemon concludes from this translational issue that he and Rhaegar, among others, had mistaken the gender of this promised figure - and that does feel like a nice twist. But it is also possible that "the dragon that was promised" meant neither "prince" nor "princess" to begin with... instead, it may simply have meant "dragon" all along.

I like this possibility, because it would mean that neither Aemon nor Mel have correctly solved the puzzle for us. And if this solution is correct - that "dragon" truly means just "dragon" - then Azor Ahai and the Dragon that was Promised are in fact separate figures. To me, that feels more satisfying... and more likely, given the sheer complexity of this overall tale. (I do want Martin to start pulling the threads together - it's time! - but given the number of cultures, prophecies, and storylines he's worked in... by the time we actually get to the end of all this, I expect to see multiple heroes and prophesied figures rather than just 2 or 3. And on top of that, I fully expect we'll find several characters who "fit" the prophecy for any given role...)

ETA: (Because it's not clear from the above...) If AAR and the DtwP are separate figures, it is still possible that both could figure into the same prophecies... without just being different names for the same person. The AAR prophecy, in particular, has room for both figures (and more): "Azor Ahai shall be born again amidst smoke and salt to wake dragons out of stone."

As always we're hampered here not just by dodgy translations but by the absence of any text to work on. That being said I don't think that changing the Prince that was Promised to the Dragon that was Promised invalidates either the identification of Dany as the Prince or as Azor Ahai. Indeed it could be held as proving it, because alone of Aerys' children Dany is the one who has woken the Dragons, bringing them back into the world and that not improbably is exactly what she was born to do and prophesied to do.

Arguments over both interpretation of the prophecies and identification of the chosen one have rippled up and down the board and indeed the text itself for years, but I'm comfortable with this one because it not only fits in terms of both the prophecies and the Dragons but it does so in ways which turn easy expectations on their head. Yes, La Targaryena qualifies as Azor Ahai but is she really the hero that will save Westeros from the Others, or does she represent the real threat. Yes, I see no reason to doubt that Jon is the son of Rhaegar and Lyanna, but I do very strongly disagree with the assumption that he is thereby the heir to the Iron Throne and Azor Ahai. I think that the kicker here is that he is not a Targaryen but a Son of Winterfell.

[addicted to snow]

I don't think its a matter of time physically moving differently but rather how it is perceived.

As I recall from an earlier post the references to the moon indicate that thus far at least three months have passed since Bran entered the cave, yet without those references there no such sense of anything like that amount of time passing. It feels as though Bran has been down there for days or perhaps stretching it, a week or two, but certainly not months stretching into many months.

Yeah, it's the same way in Arya's Bravosi chapters where one page can span an entire month...

[Black Crow]

I am interested to see how you develop Dany's birth as the trigger

Its something I'm still developing and would welcome input on so bear with me if it seems rather loosely woven.

Given that something has triggered what's going on, identifying that trigger is obviously going to help us towards an understanding of what might be going on.

The red star has long been a favourite but the timing seems off because while it appears in time for the birth of the dragons, Craster's sons have been collected long before that and have been working themselves north of the Wall, so we need to look further back.

Summerhall has been suggested, but other than as I've outlined its very difficult to see a direct connection. However if we look at Robert's Rebellion that provides us with a useful time period in which to harvest Craster's sons and build up the strength of the white walkers. Of itself that still doesn't tell us enough but if we identify Danaerys is Azor Ahai/Prince that was Promised then her birth is an obvious possibility, and where it gets interesting is if we look suspiciously at that great storm which battered Dragonstone the night she was born. was it a random event, was it a portent of her future, or was it an attempt to kill her and her mother?

What I'm inclined to wonder here you see is whether if Danaerys is Azor Ahai the Dragon Queen we shouldn't be looking not just at the Singers but at a whole string of allegiances against the return of the dragons, including but not limited to the Maesters who killed off the last dragons, and all the other parties associated with the Old Gods including a certain son of Winterfell.

At this stage though its still a matter of something to think about rather than a solid theory.

[The Snowfyre Chorus]

As always we're hampered here not just by dodgy translations but by the absence of any text to work on. That being said I don't think that changing the Prince that was Promised to the Dragon that was Promised invalidates either the identification of Dany as the Prince or as Azor Ahai. Indeed it could be held as proving it, because alone of Aerys' children Dany is the one who has woken the Dragons, bringing them back into the world and that not improbably is exactly what she was born to do and prophesied to do.

Arguments over both interpretation of the prophecies and identification of the chosen one have rippled up and down the board and indeed the text itself for years, but I'm comfortable with this one because it not only fits in terms of both the prophecies and the Dragons but it does so in ways which turn easy expectations on their head. Yes, La Targaryena qualifies as Azor Ahai but is she really the hero that will save Westeros from the Others, or does she represent the real threat. Yes, I see no reason to doubt that Jon is the son of Rhaegar and Lyanna, but I do very strongly disagree with the assumption that he is thereby the heir to the Iron Throne and Azor Ahai. I think that the kicker here is that he is not a Targaryen but a Son of Winterfell.

Yeah, I'm more or less with you on that... my view of the translation issues doesn't eliminate any possibilities at all, it really just broadens them. That said... it does seem to bring in one event more feasibly than either the "prince" or "princess" translations would. That event would be the birth of Rhaego along with the simultaneous re-entry of "dragon spirit" (and its magic) into the world.

The other thing that occurs to me, as I read back through my own post and yours... is that Azor Ahai and the Dragon, almost any way you cut it, are represented as agents of fire. Now, I don't necessarily think that ends up being the case when all is said and done, but it does highlight the fact that (as you say) we have no texts to represent the "Ice" side of this supposedly dualistic conflict. So no matter how we choose to translate "prince/princess/dragon," it doesn't give us any insight into the identity of Mel's alleged "Great Other." We just haven't seen that portion of this "ancient prophecy" received from Asshai.

[Hrafntýr]

So a slightly different thought on this one, but building upon rather than contradicting Butcher's thoughts.

We have the white walkers, not a separate race or species but the Old Gods answer to the Bloody Mummers; janissaries or to follow Butcher's happy thought, the Unsullied. Children taken and turned into soldiers, but why...?

We're told they first appeared during the Long Night and that they administered a massive defeat to the First Men - and it was a defeat, everything north of the Wall was lost and everything between the Wall and the Neck pretty comprehensively depopulated. Sounds like a result to me. And then we've the evidence that they've been appearing from time to time ever since, but for what reason we don't know, yet anyway.

So why now?

There have been a couple of suggestions that it might be linked [1] to an absence of a Stark in Winterfell, or [2] Summerhall. The first I'd be inclined to dismiss. Yes Lord Rickard and his son Brandon were murdered by Aerys on the same day, but they were immediately succeeded by Lord Eddard, who in turn had Benjen deputising for him, so I don't see that one as a runner.

The problem with Summerhall is that while its mentioned significantly, demonstrating a link has been difficult, but there is in fact a possible connection.

Way back at the time when Heresy started off there was a joke that perhaps this isn't going to be a question of the Dragons saving Westeros from the Others, but rather the Others saving Westeros from the Dragons. Very funny says you, but consider this:

The Targaryens, or at least some of them, have been obsessed with the Prince that was Promised prophecy. We know very little about it, but given that exchange between Mel and Maester Aemon its not unreasonable to suppose that its a child of the Azor Ahai prophecy, identifying the hero in question as a Targaryen prince.

So far so good.

Now whatever the intentions of what went down at Summerhall, it had one very important result - it put Aerys II on the Iron Throne. Aerys, as we know, had a son, Rhaegar, who convinced himself that he was the Prince that was Promised and when he found that he didn't fit decided to make him instead - hence the excitement in some quarters over the R+L=J business. But as Maester Aemon pointed out the translation [from what?] was dodgy and decided that Danaerys is the one.

Objectively, you see, this has a lot going for it. Danaerys is the daughter of Aerys and brother of Rhaegar. This means that she is of the same generation; an obvious point I know but Rhaegar must have based his identification of himself as the Prince on something, perhaps counting the generations from Raella or whatever, but making the same mistake as Maester Aemon in looking for a boy, ie; if its not him and can't be weedy little Viserys, he must have done his sums wrong and its down to him to raise up the Prince in the next generation. In other words he reckoned without Danaerys and she, as we know, not only fits all the criteria but has the dragons to prove it.

Indeed the objection out there in the forum to identifying Danaerys as Azor Ahai/the Prince that was Promised is that she fits the criteria too well and is therefore far too obvious.

But if Westeros is to be saved from Azor Ahai, rather than saved by Azor Ahai... then its nowhere near so "obvious".

So lets look at the saving. Is the significant trigger for things starting to wake up north of the Wall and for Craster to begin giving up his sons not Summerhall or the death of Lord Rickard [and Brandon] but the birth of Danaerys/Azor Ahai on Dragonstone.

There are a couple of other wrinkles which occur to me on this, including the storm on the night of her birth [an attempt to kill her off there and then?] but I'll put this out now and see if it might have legs.

Wait...that was a joke!?! Haha, and here I've been taking it seriously all along!

I dig this, BC. And all the conversations we had last thread about the "female Other" somehow worked to make me feel that AA is the "baddie" (and possibly that NK a hero), so I'm especially receptive! I really like how your hypothesis allows the Dany=AA equation to remain intact and offers a plausible "trigger" for the apparent escalation of activity beyond the wall.

I also am interested in considering how the various parties opposed to dragons might fit together. I just this morning came upon an interesting thread, The Gods Eye Conspiracy, which is looking to the factions opposed to the dragons and seeks to link together House Hightower, House Whent and the greenseers. The OP has only addressed the first two so far, and I'm quite curious to see what he or she does to bring in the greenseers, since it's thus far only come in tangentially, with the role of Gods Eye in the events of the Dance of the Dragons and Robert's Rebellion.

A curious ripple in all this, though, is the role of the "woods witch" and Jenny of Oldstones in the tPtwP business. Many have speculated that she is the Ghost of High Heart and possibly a singer. Is her "dragon-breeding" recommendation (that is, how to create the PtwP) evidence of "factions" among the Children, or was this somehow part of a plan against the dragons?

[wolfmaid7]

I'm looking at the moon cycles for Bran first and he's been down there about 3mths by his perception of time in the cave.I get the sense that time outside moved faster which is a problem to sync especially when he made note of the Moon while he was hunting in Summer outside. I made note of about 3 Dark Moons,2 Full Moons,Waxing and waning moons that fell all weird.Again it is clear Bran's perception of time is not the same outside.

" The moon was a black hole in the sky.Outside the cave the world went on.Outside the cave the sun rose and set,the moon turned,the cold winds howled".

I must admit It is ambiguous ATS when they started eating the meat,though the last thing Bran mention was a Full Moon he said they were eating that meat nearly everyday now,but it's unclear where they are getting it from or any mention of anyone going out to hunt given the status outside the caves with the Wights and the crazy weather surrounding them .So

1. There is another entrance exit by which they are going out,or food is being put in the caves for them

2. Note the goat is still alive,they got cheese and dried fruit.

[Black Crow]

Yeah, I'm more or less with you on that... my view of the translation issues doesn't eliminate any possibilities at all, it really just broadens them. That said... it does seem to bring in one event more feasibly than either the "prince" or "princess" translations would. That event would be the birth of Rhaego along with the simultaneous re-entry of "dragon spirit" (and its magic) into the world.

The other thing that occurs to me, as I read back through my own post and yours... is that Azor Ahai and the Dragon, almost any way you cut it, are represented as agents of fire. Now, I don't necessarily think that ends up being the case when all is said and done, but it does highlight the fact that (as you say) we have no texts to represent the "Ice" side of this supposedly dualistic conflict. So no matter how we choose to translate "prince/princess/dragon," it doesn't give us any insight into the identity of Mel's alleged "Great Other." We just haven't seen that portion of this "ancient prophecy" received from Asshai.

Given GRRM's reluctance to have Gods walking the earth and doing stuff, I do also wonder whether we ought to be wary of treating Ice and Fire too literally, but rather should regard them more as symbols of opposed forces in a war fought out by those believing or at least claiming to be acting in their names.

[Black Crow]

Wait...that was a joke!?! Haha, and here I've been taking it seriously all along!

I dig this, BC. And all the conversations we had last thread about the "female Other" somehow worked to make me feel that AA is the "baddie" (and possibly that NK a hero), so I'm especially receptive! I really like how your hypothesis allows the Dany=AA equation to remain intact and offers a plausible "trigger" for the apparent escalation of activity beyond the wall.

I also am interested in considering how the various parties opposed to dragons might fit together. I just this morning came upon an interesting thread, The Gods Eye Conspiracy, which is looking to the factions opposed to the dragons and seeks to link together House Hightower, House Whent and the greenseers. The OP has only addressed the first two so far, and I'm quite curious to see what he or she does to bring in the greenseers, since it's thus far only come in tangentially, with the role of Gods Eye in the events of the Dance of the Dragons and Robert's Rebellion.

A curious ripple in all this, though, is the role of the "woods witch" and Jenny of Oldstones in the tPtwP business. Many have speculated that she is the Ghost of High Heart and possibly a singer. Is her "dragon-breeding" recommendation (that is, how to create the PtwP) evidence of "factions" among the Children, or was this somehow part of a plan against the dragons?

Although I haven't read it yet this is very much the sort of thing I have in mind.

[wolfmaid7]

What I'm inclined to wonder here you see is whether if Danaerys is Azor Ahai the Dragon Queen we shouldn't be looking not just at the Singers but at a whole string of allegiances against the return of the dragons, including but not limited to the Maesters who killed off the last dragons, and all the other parties associated with the Old Gods including a certain son of Winterfell.

At this stage though its still a matter of something to think about rather than a solid theory.

I'm going to suggest something weird here and bear with me.

1. It is Winter,yet we have a Summer King already being seated without a Winter King in play........Why i don't know

2. We have Benero's prophecy concerning Dany including a "Summer that will never end"

3. Who could usher in a Summer that's endless,what creatures would benefit from an endless Summer?

Just thought of this..

[TheTowerOfJoy]

What puzzles me is that the current ones do not look like singers at all.

If the singers created the first one, that should look like a singer, shouldn't it? With the ice swords and camouflage armor size shouldn't matter (Yoda!).

If the first one looked like a singer

- why/since when do the current ones look like they do?

- why do the first ones hunt maids?

- why didn't Old Nan tell this?

My conclusion: the first ones looked like the current ones and therefore weren't created by singers.

Crackpot: maybe the ice spiders are frozen krakens? Eight legs all the same. The first ones could be Iron Islands side effects of the hammer. Would make sense with the drowned god, what is dead may never die, and the increasing number of Greyjoys.

I took this into account by theorizing that it was a human greenseer that was being preserved by the children, perhaps even Bran the Builder himsel, but I'm starting to wonder if it wasn't a human greenseer himself that started it all.

Let's say there is a human greenseer attached to a weirwood that gets destroyed in one of the wars thousands of years after the Pact during the age of heroes, or perhaps when the first Andals land in Westeros (before the full scale invasion).

His weirwood is dieing, so he accesses the weirnet and learns about aeromancy/ice magic, and uses it to replace his own flesh since the weirwood is no longer capable of sustaining him. He curses the family of the people that killed his weirwood (the pre-decessors of the Starks), and demands a human sacrifice in accordance with the Pact to replace the weirwood. He freeze dries the child, preserving it, travels to where Winterfell now stands, where he'll be safe from the invaders/wars and attaches the child to the weirwood and takes over it's body so that he can re-attach to the weirnet.

Perhaps this is what we'll see in the crypts below Winterfell is abandoned ice bodies of the first White Walkers, though it would have to stay awfully cold to preserve them all this time.

[alienarea]

Ah but you see that's where I part company with TOJ because while I think that the Singers or their agents are creating the white walkers they are and always have been stealing human children as their changelings, not transforming themselves.

This makes the CotF the faeries, doesn't it? Not too familiar with those, unfortunately.

But, why would the CotF who tried to stop the First Men from coming to Westeros, then start stealing their babies?

[TheTowerOfJoy]

I think that the kicker here is that he is not a Targaryen but a Son of Winterfell.

But he's both, thus the Song of Ice AND Fire, not Ice or Fire, or the Song of Ice and the Song of Fire.