Heresy 172

[Mace Cooterian]

A special note to Black Crow.

Tonight, I saw the preview for "Jonathon Strange & Mr. Norell" for the first time here in the new land. Not sure when it will be premiering but we have it on our radar.

Question: Am I okay watching the series without having read the books first? Your forthcoming wisdom will guide us.

[Voice]

Not going there. Heh. Whitetree is too far away from Craster's. And Craster is a sheepherd. Or he was until he gave up all his sheep. Maybe the sheep go to the Others pet spiders.

I think the sons are used for magic. I know there is a debate over blood magic and only death can pay for life etc., but we have seen Mel take part of Stannis' animus/essence/life to create shadow men and MMD use blood to call forth the old powers and dance with the shadows. Craster's sons have a purpose, I say.

I agree, with only a few caveats.

Of paramount concern is that Craster also kept pigs, so he qualifies as a swineherd in addition to shepherd... ;)

Mayhaps less importantly, I do not equate Craster himself, nor his wives, with the purpose for which their sons are being used. I think any infant would work for whatever machinations they are being used. It may be that male infants, specifically, are required for this purpose, but Craster's Keep isn't the best indicator as he marries the daughters. I don't think there's anything significant about Craster himself, which is why I tend to view his daughter-wives' captivity as unjustifiable.

While I also believe they are being used for magic, I think the show has connected them to magic in a very unrealistic fashion (how would a newborn baby survive a trek to the frozen north in the arms of a being cold enough to shatter steel? ...etc). As wolfmaid would often point out, we've seen but two white walkers in the entire series, sers Crackles and Puddles, and neither of them were collecting infants. The one time the blue eyed lot approached one of Craster's sons (in the canon) it was in the form of wights. And while Gilly assumed they were after Monster, we've no pressing reason to trust her assessment of the situation.

To the 'death paying for life' list, we should also add Rhaego, who helped hatch Dany's dragons. This, I think, is closer to what is happening with infants abandoned to the cold. There's no way a newborn will live for long abandoned and exposed. So unless the blue-eyed lot have a warm kangaroo pouch hidden under that awesome reflective armor, I think we can expect something more nuanced than the changelings in the mummer's farce.

And regarding Whitetree, I'm not sure kinder-wights mind long walks, but oh well. In any case, the bones in the weirwood's mouth there, moon tea abortions, and Old Nan's tale (in addition to Craster's form of family-planning), all seem to suggest that infanticide is rather common in ASOIAF.

He can be all of those things and still be onto something re: the walkers. He doesn't have to be good, smart, helpful, or anything else--he is the only one we hear of who bears a curse, sacrifices children (and sheep) to the cold gods, and maintains safety in his horrible keep. Not saying he's figured it all out. Not saying he's "right." But he ain't entirely wrong either--re: the cold gods.

I hear ya. I'd only point out that he never names the Others as his gods, nor do his wives. And he never implies that he keeps right with his gods by offering them his sons. Unlike the mummer's farce, walkers are never seen collecting his sons in the books, nor any children at all for that matter. And if they did, how would they not freeze to death?

Something else is afoot.

Considering all we have seen of Craster is that he leaves his male offspring in the woods to die from exposure, I think it requires too many assumptions to place him in a pivotal role in the North.

Just an addition to the Septa Lemore discussion from the previous thread:

http://www.westeros.org/Citadel/SSM/Entry/A_Myriad_of_Questions/

__________

6) How old is Howland Reed?

He'd be in his thirties.

7) And how would have been Ashara Dayne?

Ditto.

__________

Tyrion describes Septa Lamore as "past forty." For context, this SSM was written when GRRM was already working on AFFC/ADWD. It's not exactly damning evidence against Ashara being Lemore, since it's just Tyrion's subjective judgment, but taken with the fact that he never observes her striking eyes... :dunno:

Unless Ashara has aged incredibly poorly, Lemore certainly seems rather unlike the most beautiful woman in living memory.

[Phillip Frye]

i agree. things have changed. on that note. is there anywhere in heresy that we've listed those things from earlier books that have been clearly changed?

off hand, i can think of the faceless men being devotees of the red god, and the position of warden being a military position and not an honorary one.

I'm pretty sure that Martin's original outline didn't involve Daenerys spending three books failing to govern a city state in Slaver's Bay.

[Phillip Frye]

He can be all of those things and still be onto something re: the walkers. He doesn't have to be good, smart, helpful, or anything else--he is the only one we hear of who bears a curse, sacrifices children (and sheep) to the cold gods, and maintains safety in his horrible keep. Not saying he's figured it all out. Not saying he's "right." But he ain't entirely wrong either--re: the cold gods.

It's better that he comes across to the reader as a crazy old fanatic. That way the reader will discount what he and the mothers/daughters/sister-wives are saying, just as Voice of the First Men and Addicted to Neckbeards do. The best place to hide something is in plain sight.

[Phillip Frye]

Agreed--I've no idea how he came up with this "system"--but it does seem different than the rest. The sheep baffle me a bit--no one says anything about the sheep coming back for other members of their flock (weirdest version of Mary had a little lamb ever)--am wondering if they don't really work as well as kids--the cold winds are rising.

Martin adding the detail of the sheep might be the most clever thing that he put into the Craster character arc. We have some crazy old fanatic having sex with his offspring, sacrificing his sons to the Others, having the sons return as Others, and everyone ends up getting hung up over his giving sheep to the Others. The other, super-crazy stuff just slides right by.

"I mean, sure, I accept that he gives his children over to the Others for transmogrification, but the part about the sheep, I'm not certain that I can wrap my mind around that."

No offense meant to you, Sly Wren. It's just that everyone ends up concentrating on the sheep at some point.

[Sly Wren]

I hear ya. I'd only point out that he never names the Others as his gods, nor do his wives. And he never implies that he keeps right with his gods by offering them his sons. Unlike the mummer's farce, walkers are never seen collecting his sons in the books, nor any children at all for that matter. And if they did, how would they not freeze to death?

Something else is afoot.

Considering all we have seen of Craster is that he leaves his male offspring in the woods to die from exposure, I think it requires too many assumptions to place him in a pivotal role in the North.

Completely fair. I'd only say that Craster and his role don't have to be pivotal to be a hint. His sacrificing to the woods, the women saying the boy's brothers are coming--this in no way solves the problem of understanding the Others. Even if you believe everything they say (which would be hard--they are crazy and what they do say has huge gaps), still don't know how the process works, what the implications of it are, etc. It's at best a piece of the puzzle. I'd argue an important piece, but not a solution.

It's better that he comes across to the reader as a crazy old fanatic. That way the reader will discount what he and the mothers/daughters/sister-wives are saying, just as Voice of the First Men and Addicted to Neckbeards do. The best place to hide something is in plain sight.

Agreed--Martin makes us look at Craster multiple times from multiple angles. If the whole point was--"urgh! he's horrible!" we should have been able to get that on the first look. Martin makes us look again and again--we're supposed to see something.

No offense meant to you, Sly Wren. It's just that everyone ends up concentrating on the sheep at some point.

HA! No offense taken. If anything, it lends itself to the argument that Craster is onto something, but not omniscient re: cold gods. And your point really makes me wish we had a sheep emoji.

[addicted to snow]

Agreed--I've no idea how he came up with this "system"--but it does seem different than the rest. The sheep baffle me a bit--no one says anything about the sheep coming back for other members of their flock (weirdest version of Mary had a little lamb ever)--am wondering if they don't really work as well as kids--the cold winds are rising.

The Sheep are the big clue that everything is not as it seems in the North... Craster is GRRM's version of David Koresh (a cult leader who's story was playing out on TV while GRRM was writing ACOKs & ASOSs). We will eventually learn that Craster had no relationship whatsoever with the Others, all of his sacrifices, sheep & sons alike were given to the weirwoods...GRRM doesn't give away his biggest intrigues in books 2 & 3 of a 9 book series!!!

[Lady Dyanna]

So... It's late and I think I might have entirely lost what little is left of my mind, but...

http://asoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/topic/132186-the-true-identity-of-jaqen-hghar-possible-series-level-spoilers/#entry7154534

For some reason the above mentioned post about Rhaegar somehow being alive is resonating with me. Might be an interesting parallel to Lyanna still being around and connected to the weirnet in some way. Or not...

[Matthew.]

Martin adding the detail of the sheep might be the most clever thing that he put into the Craster character arc. We have some crazy old fanatic having sex with his offspring, sacrificing his sons to the Others, having the sons return as Others, and everyone ends up getting hung up over his giving sheep to the Others. The other, super-crazy stuff just slides right by.oint.

I always find it odd that this is a sticking point for some people as well, and don't immediately interpret it as a symbol of obeisance from a godly man--in this case, even inspired by real traditions from our world. You'd think none of these people have heard the phrase "sacrificial lamb" before

[addicted to snow]

If Craster's Sons supposedly return as Others... Then the sheep would too & we have seen nothing of the sort...

[Black Crow]

Continuing on the Craster debate-

I'm thinking of a number between everything and two and Craster is the one.

In Whitetree, in the mouth of the weirwood when the Watch stops there on their way north there are skulls in the mouth of the tree large enough to swallow a sheep. One is smaller, so probably a child's skull. And there is ashes and bits of bones and blackedness from fire. In these few paragraphs of that Jon chapter, we get reference to sheep and babies and burning the dead. And I would say sacrifice too. The villagers are feeding the weirwood their burnt offerings.

Then there is Craster, also hailing from Whitetree, sacrificing sheep and babies but to the cold instead of the weirwood. So I think he is not new to the idea of sacrificing to the gods and he grew up with this ritual. But where the sacrifice turned to the cold gods is intriguing.

I believe it is Jon who says he gives his sons to the woods. So if the Others are inhabiting the woods, then I guess this would just fit in with his practice of sating the gods.

Sheep and children are the foods of the gods.

Craster sees himself as blessed, or at least makes a show of it, but Ygritte calls him cursed. I suppose it's all in where you're standing.

I'm inclined to disagree. Mormont comments at one point that he always wondered why the Wildlings burned their dead, having just realised that it was to stop them rising as wights, or at least that was the reason for what to that point had been no more than a tradition. The bones in the tree were certainly an offering to the gods but not necessarily sacrificed to them. That may simply have been what they normally did with the ashes. Craster on the other hand is not doing that at all but rather giving them to the "cold gods, the ones who come in the night". I still hold that ultimately the walkers are the unchancy servants of the old gods, but its a very different process and purpose.

[Black Crow]

A special note to Black Crow.

Tonight, I saw the preview for "Jonathon Strange & Mr. Norell" for the first time here in the new land. Not sure when it will be premiering but we have it on our radar.

Question: Am I okay watching the series without having read the books first? Your forthcoming wisdom will guide us.

Good question. I would say so and as Wolfmaid and I are agreed Vinculus is superb.

However a fair warning to all. The magic of the Raven King has pretty well been lost and the ending a big disappointment

[Black Crow]

i agree. things have changed. on that note. is there anywhere in heresy that we've listed those things from earlier books that have been clearly changed?

off hand, i can think of the facelessmen being devotees of the red god, and the position of warden being a military position and not an honorary one.

Its not something we've looked at globally although we've done so in relation to particular topics. Given the expansion of the story from an intended trilogy to the present monster changes are inevitable but a better question might be whether they matter and are affecting the ultimate result.

One thing which inevitably bears scrutiny is the question of Jon Snow. We have a mystery as to his mother and the original synopsis rules out Lord Eddard Stark. The smart money is on that Rhaegar character, whom some declare to be too obvious, while GRRM, keeping his lips sealed assures all who will listen that he won't change something just because some smart-arse has guessed the answer.

While that seems straightforward its not, because such an identification is not an end in itself. What matters is how its going to affect the outcome. The popular money in a lot of quarters is on Jon Targaryen First of his Name etc etc; but GRRM himself doesn't seem so sure. The only reference to the question in the synopsis in the OP was the removal of a barrier to Jon getting inside Arya's knickers. Danaerys is the one who has to rally the kingdom against the horror from the North. And then there are the obstacles appearing; there's that decree of legitimacy naming Jon as the lawful son of Eddard Stark. He can't be both Jon Targaryen and Jon Stark. He alone must choose. And then conversely there's Aerys' naming Viserys as his heir ahead of Rhaegar's progeny.

R+L=J may not be up for negotiation but the ways he can play it are a different matter.

[Voice]

Completely fair. I'd only say that Craster and his role don't have to be pivotal to be a hint. His sacrificing to the woods, the women saying the boy's brothers are coming--this in no way solves the problem of understanding the Others. Even if you believe everything they say (which would be hard--they are crazy and what they do say has huge gaps), still don't know how the process works, what the implications of it are, etc. It's at best a piece of the puzzle. I'd argue an important piece, but not a solution.

We agree :cheers:

I don't have the references handy, but it is worth noting that Craster is a village in Northumbrian coast of England that specializes in herring-curing.

Ah, found the wiki.

Credit goes to someone other than me for that catch ;) I want to say it was Snowfyre Chorus, but I'm probably wrong.

[Black Crow]

Addicted to Snowdrops is the one who gets excited about it.

Actually I know it quite well, its less than an hour up the coast from me. Nice place.

[LordImp]

For me, at least, it depends on how you define "dance." Replay of the Targaryen civil war? Can't see that--the Long Night is coming. Really think the wights and the walkers are getting past that Wall somehow. Dany shows up to claim throne, she's got to help save the throne (and all it represents) first. Hard to see a fight between them once a good percentage of people realizing what's actually coming from the north.

Or were you referencing a fight after they deal with the impending Long Night? Something else entirely?

GRRM has said their will be a second Dance , i dont have the exact quote but it's out their. But we dont know the second dance will be a exact civil war as the last one .

[Reposado]

GRRM tends to keep things ambiguous enough that it's hard to tell where, specifically, he has changed his mind. Broadly, we know he had to have abandoned some ideas (and created new ones) when he decided not to do the five year skip.

Here's one thing that I can't prove, but I'm almost certain is true: Bloodraven didn't exist in GRRM's head when he wrote aGoT. He may have had some vague notion of a greenseer who would eventually train Bran, but I don't think that Greenseer was a half-Blackwood, half-Targaryen character that, among other things, had served as a Hand to the King.

ah that's a good one. likewise. he probably had some idea that there would be a false targaryen in adwd, but had not thought of the blackfyre story yet.

personal theory: after creating the blackfyre rebellion as world building while writing asos, he realized that by fleshing that story out he could create both his false dragon and his greenseer......and give more material to work with for dunk and egg stories.

i'm not sure if while writing the first two books, he knew that varys and ilyrio would be working with the blackfyre yet. pretty much everything they do in agot/acok works whether they are falsely or truly supporting dany

[Reposado]

I agree, with only a few caveats.

Of paramount concern is that Craster also kept pigs, so he qualifies as a swineherd in addition to shepherd... ;)

Mayhaps less importantly, I do not equate Craster himself, nor his wives, with the purpose for which their sons are being used. I think any infant would work for whatever machinations they are being used. It may be that male infants, specifically, are required for this purpose, but Craster's Keep isn't the best indicator as he marries the daughters. I don't think there's anything significant about Craster himself, which is why I tend to view his daughter-wives' captivity as unjustifiable.

While I also believe they are being used for magic, I think the show has connected them to magic in a very unrealistic fashion (how would a newborn baby survive a trek to the frozen north in the arms of a being cold enough to shatter steel? ...etc). As wolfmaid would often point out, we've seen but two white walkers in the entire series, sers Crackles and Puddles, and neither of them were collecting infants. The one time the blue eyed lot approached one of Craster's sons (in the canon) it was in the form of wights. And while Gilly assumed they were after Monster, we've no pressing reason to trust her assessment of the situation.

To the 'death paying for life' list, we should also add Rhaego, who helped hatch Dany's dragons. This, I think, is closer to what is happening with infants abandoned to the cold. There's no way a newborn will live for long abandoned and exposed. So unless the blue-eyed lot have a warm kangaroo pouch hidden under that awesome reflective armor, I think we can expect something more nuanced than the changelings in the mummer's farce.

And regarding Whitetree, I'm not sure kinder-wights mind long walks, but oh well. In any case, the bones in the weirwood's mouth there, moon tea abortions, and Old Nan's tale (in addition to Craster's form of family-planning), all seem to suggest that infanticide is rather common in ASOIAF.

I hear ya. I'd only point out that he never names the Others as his gods, nor do his wives. And he never implies that he keeps right with his gods by offering them his sons. Unlike the mummer's farce, walkers are never seen collecting his sons in the books, nor any children at all for that matter. And if they did, how would they not freeze to death?

Something else is afoot.

Considering all we have seen of Craster is that he leaves his male offspring in the woods to die from exposure, I think it requires too many assumptions to place him in a pivotal role in the North.

Unless Ashara has aged incredibly poorly, Lemore certainly seems rather unlike the most beautiful woman in living memory.

crackpot: ashara dayne is a smoker

I'm pretty sure that Martin's original outline didn't involve Daenerys spending three books failing to govern a city state in Slaver's Bay.

clearly true, but that's not what i mean. i mean things that were printed in the books that were just changed.

in acok jaqen says, "the red god must have his due" but clearly we are supposed to ignore that.

but as far as dany my guess is. at the beginning(pre agot), he thought it would take as much time(bookwise) for dany to give birth to dragons as it would to resolve the stark lannister conflict.

post agot through just after asos, i imagine that he planned to leave dany in mereen for the five year gap and have her approximately ready to leave at the start of the next book

R+L=J may not be up for negotiation but the ways he can play it are a different matter.

i don't think he would change jon's parentage but i think the reaction to it will change. at this point, i would expect jon to say something, like "i dont care who gave birth to me" ned stark is my father. and he doesn't get a dragon. whereas the original plan likely did call for a dragon for jon

[Amoracchius]

Having just re-read, "The Princess and the Queen," I'm finding the talk of a Second Dance very interesting. Obviously, the main points to get across about the original Dance of the Dragons are that a female claimant and a male claimant fought for the throne on land, sea, and air, with the male claimant "winning." However, there are a lot of other details about the First Dance that, to me at least, could take on greater significance should history repeat itself in a Second Dance.

At least two major battles in the First Dance happened at the God's Eye. The first was "Fishfeed," a battle where the an army of Westermen fought Northmen and Riverlords. The Westermen were slaughtered with many driven into the lake to drown. The second battle was "The Dance over Harrenhal" between Daemon Targaryan on Caraxes and Aemond Targaryan on Vhagar. Both princes and their dragons crashed into the waters of the God's Eye and died in the battle. Given the importance of the God's Eye to other parts of the plot (it's where The Pact between COTF and the First Men was signed and the place Howland Reed visited before the fateful Tourney of Harrenhal), I feel like there has to be a greater significance to these events and a Second Dance could provide the opportunity to showcase that significance.

Additionally, The Princess and the Queen talks about how the Northmen fighting for Rhaenyra Targaryan had a habit of arranging the corpses of their enemies into grotesque scenes like a feast. Eventually, Aegon II's troops stopped paying attention to these arrangements, and were then caught off guard when it turned out one of them was a trap and the "corpses" appeared to spring to life because they were actually Northern soldiers who'd been playing dead. It's very hard to read the passage about this and not thing of wights rising, which again makes me wonder about the implications of a Second Dance.

[WhitewolfStark]

I'm pretty sure that Martin's original outline didn't involve Daenerys spending three books failing to govern a city state in Slaver's Bay.

No, instead she would've been failing to rule the Iron Throne & Westeros.