469 replies to this topic

[kissdbyfire]

FanTasy, on 17 December 2011 - 06:00 AM, said:

That makes me think of something I read before. Once upon a time there were five Lady Starks and no male heir.
Do we have reference for this in the novels or is it in SSM?
And does it have some relevance to what the role of the Starks was in building or maintaining the Wall, with the possible conditions the Starks agreed with in the Pact?

I remember reading something along those lines as well... I think it might be something to do with the upcoming "The She-Wolves of Winterfell", but I'm not at all sure.
And just to add an element to this mix of Stark heirs and their family line, we know that not very long ago a Stark woman 'heavy with child' begs the Old Gods for a son who would avenge her. What does it mean and how it fits I have no idea...

[Eyron I]

BrosBeforeSnows, on 16 December 2011 - 10:26 PM, said:

Nice post Eira. I really like your points about Bran the Builder. And I totally forgot about Bran and Leaf. The fact that he thought she looked so much like Arya is a pretty telling clue, IMO.

Exactly, it was pretty much shoved in our faces, repeatedly

BrosBeforeSnows, on 16 December 2011 - 10:26 PM, said:

However, if we assume there is a Westerosi origin to the name, rather than an Anglo-Saxon one, it could have a different meaning. The word "bolt", for example, can mean "arrow", or "movable rod that fastens a gate". Alternate meanings include, "to discontinue support" or "to break with", and "to examine and separate". And the archaic meaning of the word is, "with sudden meeting or collision".

I'm most intrigued by the latter definitions; i.e. "to break with", "to examine and separate", and "a sudden collision". We know that the Boltons broke with the Starks, and have been at odds with them for many hundreds, if not thousands of years. Perhaps the rift was a sudden one (i.e. "a sudden collision")? We also know that flaying people is a Bolton family tradition, which is literally the practice of separating someone from their skin.

Thank you! I agree with Kissdbyfire, was there ever a name more suitable?
It makes me think that the Boltons have been opposed to the Stark rule or the Stark methods for a long long time, since the beginning of their house. There have been many mentions of the Boltons ICE coloured eyes, like chips of ice, and so on. Perhaps GRRM is really hinting something here. Maybe the Boltons were involved in bringing about the Long Night, but unlike the Starks who changed sides and fought the Others, the Boltons never wanted to, but was forced?

BrosBeforeSnows, on 16 December 2011 - 10:53 PM, said:

Here's a question I have...

If wights and White Walkers were such a problem way back when, why isn't there a tradition of cremation in the North? As far as I can tell, they all bury their dead in crypts (or, at least, the Starks do).

Generally, traumatic cultural experiences, like having to fight demons and their pet zombies, influence tradition. Even if the event took place way back in history, something as traumatic as the Long Night should've had an effect on Northern culture; namely the practice of burning their dead to prevent reanimation.

Granted, wights have not been seen in the world for many years, but you'd think something like that would've been remembered in the North. The North remembers!... Apparently not.

The north only remember that there is something they should remember

As far as I know we don't really know what the burials traditions are in the north these days, except that the Stark have their bones in the crypts and that Lady Dustin wanted the bones of her dead husband back from the south and Manderly was sent his son's bones I think. She could be a representative or an exception, we don't know, and I am not sure if Manderly have northern burial traditions.
I think the Starks keep their bones in the crypts because that is the way of the Children, the crypts are beneath the godswood I think, so they are connected with the cavern beneath the weirwood hearttree. For some reason they are entombed and kept from access to the trees roots perhaps, and the ironswords "keeping" them in place. If this is a Stark tradition or something the Children required we don't know, I really think it stems from their dealings with the Children in any case.

If there are only bones left, perhaps there is nothing to wightify That would be reasonable to me, it's the flesh that can be controlled, not the bones. The bones remember who they are... Perhaps meaning they can't be raised and controlled. The spirits could be raised from the bones perhaps, as ghosts, but with free will intact.
I really don't want to see skeletons rattling about in the future books! That would be... bleh... a poor choice of dear GRRM.

Sister Goldenhair, on 17 December 2011 - 12:26 AM, said:

He's afraid of what is waiting for him. Not the old Kings of Winter, but something else. He screams that he is not a Stark, that it isn't his place, but it is no good and he feels he has to go down, so he starts, with no torch to light his way. It gets darker and darker, until he wants to scream, and then he wakes up.

This is a recurring dream of Jon Snow, could be he is going to find that Bran is the Great Other or that all the dead Starks are there and he joins them only to really never die (they are the wights).

Perhaps.  (Posted this on the Jaime Bran thread also in that I was thinking that this meant that Jon Snow was not the AA or maybe he is and he has to fight the Starks)

Right, I agree, Jon is afraid of what is waiting for him. There is something he is afraid of in any case. I don't think Bran is the great Other, though, but I am still a bit confused about the Other-Children-Stark relations. There are too many possibilities right now, but I sincerely don't think that the Children are the ones wielding the magic if ice, and that the White Walkers are their soldiers. But perhaps in the first Long night, some of the Starks did. Maybe that is why the Children wanted Bran to come to them, to prevent him from raising the dead, to show him what happened in the past.

[kissdbyfire]

BrosBeforeSnows, on 16 December 2011 - 10:53 PM, said:

Here's a question I have...

If wights and White Walkers were such a problem way back when, why isn't there a tradition of cremation in the North? As far as I can tell, they all bury their dead in crypts (or, at least, the Starks do).

Generally, traumatic cultural experiences, like having to fight demons and their pet zombies, influence tradition. Even if the event took place way back in history, something as traumatic as the Long Night should've had an effect on Northern culture; namely the practice of burning their dead to prevent reanimation.

Granted, wights have not been seen in the world for many years, but you'd think something like that would've been remembered in the North. The North remembers!... Apparently not.

What if the heat from the hot springs prevent wightification? Wights are most sensible to heat/fire, this is the most effective way of not only killing them, but keeping them at bay. We don't know much about the hot springs at Winterfell, but from what little we know we can assume they are pretty massive and very hot - after all, they not only keep the godswood from freezing but they keep a castle as huge as Winterfell pretty comfy even in severe cold weather...


Just read Eira's post - excellent points, Eira! - and now I think maybe a combo of factors keeps the bodies from wightifying - the heat from the hot springs and the weirwood net/roots.

Also, the thing with the bones you've mentioned made me remember something I read in ADwD - or at least I think it was in ADwD - I sometimes find it very hard to place events, like 'what happened in which book'. I have it highlighted somewhere, and I'll look for it. I can't even recall whether it was Summer or Ghost, but I think it was Summer - perhaps in that fight Bran & co. had against the wights at the mouth of the CotF's cave: Summer (?) is attacking a wight, and only when he snaps the bone for the marrow does the 'arm remembers it was dead' (paraphrasing). This always made me wonder... Of course, it's just such a good example of GRRM's brilliant writing - 'the arm remembers it was dead', but I thought there might me something more in it.


It's not during that fight, it's the other Bran chapter where we see the moon turning again and again while Bran wargs and skinchanges, here it is:

"The moon was a crescent, thin and sharp as the blade of a knife. Summer dug up a severed arm, black and covered with hoarfrost, its fingers opening and closing as it pulled itself across the frozen snow. There was still enough meat on it to fill his empty belly, and after that was done he cracked the arm bones for the marrow. Only then did the arm remember it was dead."

Edited by Kissdbyfire, 17 December 2011 - 10:15 AM.

[FanTasy]

Nice post - again, Eira!

Keeping the bones of your ancestor under the ancestral keep is not restricted only to the Starks, in Jaime's dream he refers to the old Lannister forebearers that are buried under the Rock.

'The bones remember'. Very interesting. You can kill and raise the flesh, but ultimately it is in the bones what matters?
Made me think about references considering bones.
- Jon's recurring dream that he has to go into the crypt, where the bones of the Starks are. They remember something he has to know - or do?
- Ned was very clear about that bones belong in the North, not only Lyanna's bones but even the remains of Lady ("She is from the North.")
- The Children keep their bones close to them, to remember? And they seem to be the folk who have the strongest memories about the past.
- There is some emphasis in ADWD on Ghost gnawing on bones (oxen?) while Jon sits pondering and is making decisions. In the same chapter (in my recollection, I'd have to check the book) Jon says that Ghost is not a friend or a pet, he is more, a part of him.
- Jon describes the weirwoods as white as bones.
- Lady Dustin has a thing about bones too, she wanted her husbands bones and was cross when Ned didn't bring them. So cross that she wants to feed Neds bones to her dogs.
- The story that there are skins from long dead Starks in a room in the Dreadfort and that the Starks didn't claim them. Skins were considered less important then Stark bones?
- Even Melisandre knows the power of remembrance of bones. She tells Mance that he has to keep on wearing Rattleshirt's bone coat. When 'Rattleshirt' trains with Jon and nearly defeats him his glamour is lessened (Ed. when he doesn't wear the bones).

There are tunnels beneath the Wall, Not only at the Nightfort. There are tunnels near the wall in the cave where Ygritte and Jon have their last romantic meeting, Ygritte knows a lot about them. There are tunnels beneath Mole's Town as well.

Just some thought, I'm on a wild goose chase anyway Could it be that the magic that sustains the Wall is not just a spell, that it comes from bones that are stored beneath the Wall? Is that what the Children of the Forest wove into it? Is it where originally the brothers of the Night Watch were buried, so their bones continue to watch?


Edit: and there are body's/bones of Night's Watch men, and of their lord Commander, buried into the Wall. The Sentinels.

Edited by FanTasy, 17 December 2011 - 12:10 PM.

[Ser Lepus]

Black Crow, on 17 December 2011 - 07:12 AM, said:

Well exactly, the reported fact that most of the northern families have Stark blood can be explained easily enough by their marrying off their daughters. Its the lack of existing cadet branches which seems odd, and while the Karstarks and the Crasters have survived into "modern" times there's more than a hint of a breach with the Winterfell line.

The only explanation I can think of is that if the original Winterfell line died out for any reason, then another branch, say the now vanished Greystarks then became the Starks of Winterfell, but if so I would expect us to have been told something of this - its not as if it was one of those family secrets,  which nobody ever talks about.

I have already mentioned it in a previous post: GRRM said there are cadet branches of the Stark family at White Harbor and Barrowtown, but they are very far removed from the main branch.

Other offshots may have taken a different name, like the Karstarks, and many more may have gone extinct. I think that, given the laws of sucession (the daughter of a lord comes before his male brother; watch Alys Karstark, for example...), it´s not unusual for a fiefdom to change hands (from a man to his son-in-law, who has a different family name; again, watch the example of Karhold, that is going to belong to the Magnars of Thenn), so many junior branches of the Stark family may have gone extinct by lack of male heirs, and their holdings have been inherited by the Flints, Glovers, Ryswell, ...etc.

People who are descended from the Stark family through the male line but are VERY far removed (like the third son of the seventh son of the fourth son of the fifth son of the second son of the third son of the fourth son of a Stark lord) would probably be as poor as any commoner, and would be made fun when trying to use the Stark name, so they may just change names...

Edited by Ser Lepus, 17 December 2011 - 11:21 AM.

[Black Crow]

Eira, on 17 December 2011 - 09:27 AM, said:

The north only remember that there is something they should remember

A bit like my own family history. I was told there was some kind of mystery about a particular individual, but nobody living knew what it was, only that there was a mystery.

(I uncovered it in the end and it was pretty spectacular, but I needed to dig very deeply in the National Archives)

[Black Crow]

Ser Lepus, on 17 December 2011 - 11:20 AM, said:

People who are descended from the Stark family through the male line but are VERY far removed (like the third son of the seventh son of the fourth son of the fifth son of the second son of the third son of the fourth son of a Stark lord) would probably be as poor as any commoner, and would be made fun when trying to use the Stark name, so they may just change names...

On the contrary, in Scotland at least, which seems to be a very conscous model for the Northlands, those far removed tend to be proud of their connection and keen to highlight it. The gravestone of one of my ancestors records for example that although humble He was descended of the family GRANT of GRANT in the fourth line.

[Eyron I]

Kissdbyfire, on 17 December 2011 - 09:45 AM, said:

What if the heat from the hot springs prevent wightification? Wights are most sensible to heat/fire, this is the most effective way of not only killing them, but keeping them at bay. We don't know much about the hot springs at Winterfell, but from what little we know we can assume they are pretty massive and very hot - after all, they not only keep the godswood from freezing but they keep a castle as huge as Winterfell pretty comfy even in severe cold weather...

Ah, excellent point, the white cold that raises the dead probably can't do it's thing in the godswood. I think I brought that up earlier too, but it was more a question about how the wightification works, perhaps in that other thread. The free folk seems to think the weirwoods can help them against the winter, that is why Jon and the new recruits found them (and Wun Wun) in the weirwood grove north of Castle Black.

Kissdbyfire, on 17 December 2011 - 09:45 AM, said:

[...] I think maybe a combo of factors keeps the bodies from wightifying - the heat from the hot springs and the weirwood net/roots.
...

"The moon was a crescent, thin and sharp as the blade of a knife. Summer dug up a severed arm, black and covered with hoarfrost, its fingers opening and closing as it pulled itself across the frozen snow. There was still enough meat on it to fill his empty belly, and after that was done he cracked the arm bones for the marrow. Only then did the arm remember it was dead."

That hand made me very suspicious too, and I thought the wolves are going to be useful this winter. I loved that bolded sentence Allmost as much as I loved it when Theon saw a flicker of fear in Roose Boltons eyes. Yes, Roose, you should fear

FanTasy, on 17 December 2011 - 10:04 AM, said:

Keeping the bones of your ancestor under the ancestral keep is not restricted only to the Starks, in Jaime's dream he refers to the old Lannister forebearers that are buried under the Rock.

'The bones remember'. Very interesting. You can kill and raise the flesh, but ultimately it is in the bones what matters?
Made me think about references considering bones.
- Jon's recurring dream that he has to go into the crypt, where the bones of the Starks are. They remember something he has to know - or do?
- Ned was very clear about that bones belong in the North, not only Lyanna's bones but even the remains of Lady ("She is from the North.")
- The Children keep their bones close to them, to remember? And they seem to be the folk who have the strongest memories about the past.
- There is some emphasis in ADWD on Ghost gnawing on bones (oxen?) while Jon sits pondering and is making decisions. In the same chapter (in my recollection, I'd have to check the book) Jon says that Ghost is not a friend or a pet, he is more, a part of him.
- Jon describes the weirwoods as white as bones.
- Lady Dustin has a thing about bones too, she wanted her husbands bones and was cross when Ned didn't bring them. So cross that she wants to feed Neds bones to her dogs.
- The story that there are skins from long dead Starks in a room in the Dreadfort and that the Starks didn't claim them. Skins were considered less important then Stark bones?
- Even Melisandre knows the power of remembrance of bones. She tells Mance that he has to keep on wearing Rattleshirt's bone coat. When 'Rattleshirt' trains with Jon and nearly defeats him his glamour is lessened.

There are tunnels beneath the Wall, Not only at the Nightfort. There are tunnels near the wall in the cave where Ygritte and Jon have their last romantic meeting, Ygritte knows a lot about them. There are tunnels beneath Mole's Town as well.

Just some thought, I'm on a wild goose chase anyway Could it be that the magic that sustains the Wall is not just a spell, that it comes from bones that are stored beneath the Wall? Is that what the Children of the Forest wove into it? Is it where originally the brothers of the Night Watch were buried, so their bones continue to watch?


Edit: and there are body's/bones of Night's Watch men, and of their lord Commander, buried into the Wall. The Sentinels.

Good points all!

I have had a thing for the issue of bones for a while now, I think it was discussed earlier (a loooong way back) in this thread, and in other threads too. But the thing is that variations of the words "the bones remember" are put in mouths of characters from all over the place and add to that the rituals of the Starks and the Children, and now the original Lannisters too (good catch!), perhaps all the First Men.
What first cought my eye was Damphair's epiphany when he walked into the sea to get inspiration from the Drowned God, he realizes that "the flesh decays but the bones endure. There is truth in the bones." (paraphrasing, it's when he decides a kingsmoot should be held at Nagga's bones on Old Wyk). It made me think about all the other times bones were mentioned, and about why the bones are so important.

Great point on the bones in the Wall! I also think the sentinels are a hint to how things were done a long time ago at the Wall, there was another thread discussing what the magic infused in the Wall had included when it was built and I think there were sacrifices of some kind. And actual burials of their bones is of course the way of the Children! The first men of the Watch were true, their bones will remember, and that is what the "spells" are. That makes things a lot clearer to me, thank you!
I wonder how that works now that Jon was killed/stabbed, right in front of the Wall... And perhaps carried into the storerooms in the ice of the Wall...
The very thorough description we got of the storerooms must end in something, it was excessive even for GRRM I think. As well as the shieldhall description before the traumatic events of that chapter. but I don't know where that is going at all.

And there is definitely something up with the tunnels and even Mole's Town, I think these tunnels and caverns beneath weirwood groves will be very important, I think it's where you should go if you want to be safe during winter...

Edited by Eira, 17 December 2011 - 12:45 PM.

[FanTasy]

Eira, on 17 December 2011 - 12:41 PM, said:

And there is definitely something up with the tunnels and even Mole's Town, I think these tunnels and caverns beneath weirwood groves will be very important, I think it's where you should go if you want to be safe during winter...

It could be a shelter against dragonfire too

[Eyron I]

FanTasy, on 17 December 2011 - 12:51 PM, said:

It could be a shelter against dragonfire too

Yes I think it could, fire do not do well in closed spaces, it will be sucked out (I bet the Children have excellent skills in ventilation techniques), and at least regular fire did not burn the godswood in Winterfell.
I think that there is a reason earth is worshipped, and that the caverns under the weirwoods are the secret cities of the Children. Good hideyholes from ice and fire both

As Jojen said: "There is power in living wood, a power as strong as fire"... That's number three on my list of favourite sentences in the books