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Welcome to the 5th incarnation of the Heresy thread, so-called because it challenges the orthodoxy that a massive invasion of Westeros by the Others is imminent and will only be stopped the intervention of Jon, and/or Dany and the her Amazing Dragons, either of whom may turn out to be Azor Ahai.

While the discussions on this thread are sometimes accused of being imaginative (which we heretics take as a compliment) and more specifically that they do not accord with the story GRRM is writing, this we deny – not because we’ve seen the script or persuaded GRRM to otherwise spill the beans, but because there are real and undeniable problems with the early history of Westeros; inconsistencies and contradictions in the timelines and stories which we are trying to resolve using both the clues offered or sometimes hidden in the text and the real historical and mythological sources known to be drawn upon by GRRM in writing the books.

Although united in our heresy, that things are not what they seem, we’re still looking, still discussing, still arguing over what’s really going on and why and given that this is the fifth volume of the thread since the end of November we’ve still got a way to go.

If you’ve been intimidated by the speed with which the preceding threads grow to an unfeasible size and haven’t looked in before please do dip your toe in the murky water, we don’t bite and while there are strong suspicions that the Children are not the nice tree-hugging bunnies they pretend to be, we don’t actually believe they are Evil.

Those preceding threads can be found below:

http://asoiaf.wester...ost__p__2822016

http://asoiaf.wester...ost__p__2858186

http://asoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/topic/60387-heresy-3/

http://asoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/topic/60746-heresy-4/

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You all have turned me into a heritic and I love these threads!!! :commie:

I have to say all of you convinced me in the last two pages of Heresy 4. I can't wait for your essay Black Crow. I have one question about the sacrificing for the seasons, do you all think they still do it, or did it stop with the NK?

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You all have turned me into a heritic and I love these threads!!! :commie:

here here :cheers:

I have one question about the sacrificing for the seasons, do you all think they still do it, or did it stop with the NK?

I have pondered that too, and it's really hard to know. If it stopped all together with the Night's King I would think there must have been more long winters with Others inbetween then and now, but we have not heard much about it. I think the Others have come after this occation since there are records of steel not working against them, so sacrifices would have been done at a few times probably.

The last generations of Stark lords ended before their time and at least lord Rickard had "southern ambitions" (love that expression) so I would think things had changed over at least the previous 3 (or maybe more) generations.

There are so little information on the Stark ancestors to tell us anything. We know of a brother to a lord Stark that died around age 3 whom Old Nan came to Winterfell to nurse, he could have been a brother to Rickard or his father Edwyle perhaps. About a hundred years ago William Stark was killed by the host of Raymun Redbeard (hmmm, a wildling king killing a lord of Winterfell?) and little brother Artos shouldered the lordship I assume, we don't know what happened to him. But, perhaps winter was not coming for real then, during their lifetime.

A thing about the sacrifices to consider, if it was only as a ritual when winter was coming, I think the sacrifice didn't have to happen in long periods of time. During the long summer it could have been forgotten, hence the winter is now really coming - with friends.

And now it's up to the current lord/king in Winterfell to figure it out by himself. Or by help of Bran and BR and/or Sam of course.

Further thoughts:

No wonder the north is so protective of their Starks if this is true...

Who is next in line? Jon or Bran? Or is there a son of Robb?

For some reason I got an image in my head of Jon being the Persephone of this world. That may be how things are balanced again, a shared custody of poor Other-undead-stone man-prince Jon between the forces of magic :D Don't ask me how that will work though... Nor do I put much faith in it, heh.

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The analogy for this thread that popped into my head...

This saga is like a Master Level Sudoku. And even though we'll get more and more hints if we can wait to make it easier, we can't. What we're trying to untangle is something like a square with 5 possibilities, and to check one of those possibilities we're bouncing around to something akin to 20 other squares. It's a process, and for some reason there's a good chunk of us sick in the head enough to go through all of this :devil:

Speaking of that, I really think that's where we're at with the Night's King. It's either a perfect representation of how multi-faceted the puzzle is, or it's the key to it all and we just have to guess right and everything proves itself as it spirals out into the larger parts of the saga...

Just to reiterate the large background mysteries that all converge on the Night's King Episode, and not all of them just constructs by the heretics...

Joruman and the Stark of Winterfell - Wildlings working with kneelers?

Why are the wildlings north of the wall?

What's the importance of the Stark in Winterfell?

Only legend directly having a Human interact with a White Walker.

Kinslaying! A Stark deposed a Stark. Breaks a major Tenant of the Old Gods.

Joruman's horn wakes the Giants and supposedly makes the Wall crumble. Besides the mention of the Horn, this is the only Joruman mention in the legends.

I've got some Broad Angles to apply to the story to see what comes of it, but I'm not sure how much time I have Today, so I'll list the Angles, then post each Angle separately. All of my Angles are trying to keep this theme as the central... The mistakes of Man. Whether this is the Night's King doing something regrettable, the Stark in Winterfell doing something regretable, the core action that causes the greatest pain in the world was more likely something caused by Man then just something evil decided to be evil.

Angle 1 - The Night's King willfully chose something out of the ordinary from original Watch traditions. Whether that he's the first to wed a White Walker, or the first to take advantage of the marriage. (hopefully resolves that the kinslaying was resoned justifiable because the Stark LC went too far)

Angle 2 - The Stark in Winterfell was doing some sort of power grab. (hopefully resolving that the kinslaying wasn't justifiable, and this was the Stark in Winterfell going too far)

Angle 3 - The simplification of the legends theorum. That all of these major legends are a retelling of the same major core event. Two subangles will be worked here, one keeping this major event pre-andal, and one post-andal (and specifically making the propagation of the seven and the Andals into the north a part of it all...)

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Need to take a break from it for an hour or two but hopefully Professor Crow's next lecture will be posted later this evening touching on a lot of what Mrazny has just posted. I've never managed to get my head around Sudoku but it sounds a great analogy - and yes I too think that the Night's King is the key.

- I've also got a ridiculously simple explanation for why Sam might be uneasy at the numbering of the Lord Commanders

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Angle 1 of the Night's King episode - the Night's King's power play.

I don't think it has to be that the Night's King was to be sacrificed for his motivation to do something, though if the tradition was a sacrifice, that actually makes it so the LC Stark didn't neccesarily need to have intended malice for his actions to be within character. But the fact that he wanted to reign longer could simply be that he liked power as well. In either case, the White Walker bride appears significant, or at least is the legends justification of a Stark killing a Stark (even if Joruman delivers the blow, the WF Stark was a party to it all). using just the subangle of the potential sacrifice at winter's end, the Night's King wanted to extend the winter to extend his reign (or perhaps preserve his wife, who wouldn't be able to stay with him in warmer months when the wall weeps from the just barely above freezing temperatures).

We know today that the wildlings loathe the Watch, and know Stark faces by sight. So the core questions remain, why are the wildlings north of the wall, and why is Joruman working with the WF Stark in the first place? Starks appear to be Kings in the North, with the seven kingdoms being pre-andal. At some point before there were hundreds of kingdoms. I'd assume by the time of the King in the North, the wildlings were simply refusers to kneel. Though we might assume they'd hide in forests and base out there, we have the Children in play. Either the Wildlings had to go north because they couldn't work with the children, or they worked with the children, and only went north when the children did (****this will be called-back in Angle 3. If I forget to call back to this, i will have forgotten one of my suppositions and points****). I feel pretty good about the Stark in WF being a King, and more likely a King in the North if there is a Watch, not just one king among hundreds. That would lead towards the wildlings being anti-kneeling by that time, and whether forest based or north based, not heeding the call of the Starks without cause. So whatever the NK is doing is feared by Joruman as well.

Whether the Wildlings already hate the Watch, or the base of the distrust of the Watch starts from the NK episode is something to reflect on, but i don't think we have enough to suppose one way or the other. Could all come down to the nature of whatever caused there to actually be Seven kingdoms. Seven feels convenient again. Was there something to Westeros that led to a natural seven kingdom split. Is Seven an inherently Westeros thing or does anything molding into Seven hint at an Andal influence? (again going to be a call back). Wildlings don't like whatever it is that Makes the Stark in WInterfell call him King. It may be related to the Watch's traditions? Which the wildlings have a natural dislike for?

Whatever the Watch tradition, the aftermath still includes the Starks claiming the Old Gods, the wildlings helping, and in the end the wildlings remaining north, remaining hostile towards the Watch, and remaining unknelt to the King in the North. Perhaps the Night King event was the impetus to the creation of the Horn of Joruman? Which both would wake the Giant's from their sleep and weaken the Wall. Weakening the Wall makes sense if there's distrust of the Watch, perhaps directly attributable to this episode? But the Giant's part isn't direct yet. Unless that's how the wall would fall. The woken giants would have the strength to tear down the wall? The children entrusted Joruman because his wildlings stayed true to the old gods in ways the Starks were not able to do? And the Watch did not do?

Complications in general... If the Wildings were north of the Wall, Stark in Winterfell south of the Wall, and the Watch at the Wall was an issue, how did the WF Stark and Joruman communicate? Happy coincidence that both of them moved against the Night's King at the same time? A small party of wildlings crossed the wall to communicate in Winterfell?

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Angle 2 is difficult. It's hard to see it under the lens of a gray action instead of a more evil action. Obviously Man has proven capable of anything, but for the most part the Starks are held to a higher honor base. A Stark motivated by love for a possible evil white walker going down a dangerous path... A Stark extending his lifespan by some ritual with unintended consequence... A Stark willfully slaying his brother for power?

Just for the sake of not ruling it out entirely... We now have the tradition of the Eldest Stark is the King in the North and the Stark of Winterfell. We don't know if this was always the case. The legend speaks of the Stark in Winterfell as the victor, and that the LC was a Stark. I don't recall if the legend specifically spoke of the WF Stark being King in the North.

Side bits that are convenient if reaches... The Starks in the Crypts, bearded and wolf like - then clean shaven. Of the two Starks, our WInterfell victor and the Night's King LC, which more likely was grizzled and bearded? This doesn't have to mean the King's were on the Wall before and the Kings are in winterfell now, but it is a potential hint. If what we know of the crypts is correct, and the only starks that were made into likeness were the Kings, we wouldn't have two brothers, the one in Winterfell and the one on the wall both made statue, just the one that was King. However we don't know from the crypt description if it was linear, with the eldest starks all grizzled and the more recent starks clean shaven... If that was the case, this is a potential shifting point. Of course the shift doesn't have to be a power grab, that shift could be that the King was at the Wall before, the NK still did something he shouldn't have, and with the Winterfell Stark taking him down, the tradition shifted from ruling at the Wall to ruling at Winterfell.

For the WF Stark to break bad, he would be either planting the White Walker story, or he'd be scapegoating the White Walker aspect to justify it. In any case he convinced Joruman to help him. For it to be malicious, it might not be that difficult. The Wildlings hatred of the Watch could've been deep, and a simple suggestion to purge the watch might've been enough to get their cooperation. The only support for this is the partial trust the wildlings have in Starks over non-stark crows. But that supports both good intention and bad intention, so there's nothing really there for the support angle. Also the Wildlings being close to the Children possibility doesn't speak well to a malicious base for the cooperation.

All in all, I'd find this general angle difficult.

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In Professor Crow’s previous lecture I looked at the conflicts and contradictions in the timelines for the very early history of Westeros and the proposition that it was the Children who (perhaps unwittingly) unleashed the Long Night and then built the wall to contain the Winter before agreeing the Pact with the First Men.

One of the reasons why the whole Song of Ice and Fire works so well as it does is that everything turns out to be interconnected, yet as Maester Luwin tells it in his celebrated history lesson, having forged the Pact the Children and First Men lived together in harmony until the coming of the Andals and as he tells it the Long Night was just a random catastrophe in the middle of this period of happy amity. Yet as we’ve seen the Last Hero had to hunt for years before finding the Children and thanks to GRRM’s literary interruption we still don’t know what happened when he did and how the Long Night was ended.

The orthodox view is that they must have saved him from a fate worse than death and somehow given him the means to defeat the Others, but if we accept the proposition that as described by Old Nan (and later by Tormond) that the real killer is Winter, then slaying an infeasible number of White Walkers and Wights might be immensely satisfying its hardly going to turn back Winter. This is why it makes so much more sense to think that Luwin got it wrong and that far from being a random event it was by unleashing the Winter that the Children forced the First Men to the negotiating table and that therefore the battle for the dawn and the intervention of a hero known out east as Azor Ahai was something that happened much later and is connected with the breaking of the Pact formed by Winter.

At this point its worth taking a very quick look at the concept of darkness and “the night that ended”, because darkness can be both physical and metaphysical.

We’re first introduced to Azor Ahai in CoK Davos 1 where Mel tells that:

In ancient books of Asshai it is written that there will come a day after a long summer when the stars bleed and the cold breath of darkness falls heavy on the world. In this dread hour a warrior shall draw from the fire a burning sword. And that sword shall be Lightbringer, the Red Sword of Heroes, and he who clasps it shall be Azor Ahai come again and the darkness shall flee before him.

At first sight this appears to be a clear reference to the approaching Winter and the feared return of the Long Night, especially when she speaks of the “cold breath of darkness”, but it is darkness, not winter which is emphasised and that’s where it needs to be borne in mind that Mel is a Priestess and to those who have religion, those who do not are walking in darkness.

R’hllor is the Lord of Light and Mel for example declares Azor Ahai is the “Warrior of Light” and much later on for example Sam declares that he was raised in the light of the Seven, while Therefore trying to associate the original AA with the ending of the Long Night is probably barking up the wrong tree entirely because far from being the Last Hero by another name he’s a Crusader spreading the Light and fighting the heathen who have darkness in their souls – which is where we return to the Westerosi timelines.

According to one legend the Andals first arrived in Westeros in about 6,000AL, but GRRM has confirmed that 4,000AL would be a more accurate date and that in a classic pattern this particular wave of migration was the result of the Andals being forced westwards by the expanding Valyrian Empire. The two dates are not actually incompatible since we’re told that the first Andal settlers established themselves in the Vale and given its geographical isolation from the rest of Westeros, they could well have done so a long time before the main migration got underway. Exactly the same pattern can be seen all the way through the Celtic period in Britain and then the coming of the Angles/Andals and Saxons.

Unlike the Angles however the Andals seem to have been a touch militant in the religious line. According to Maester Luwin’s history:

…there came a time, many centuries later, when other peoples crossed the narrow sea.

The Andals were the first, a race of tall, fair-haired warriors who came with steel and fire and the seven pointed star of the new gods painted on their chests. The wars lasted hundreds of years, but in the end the six southron kingdoms all fell before them. Only here, where the King in the North threw back every army that tried to cross the Neck, did the rule of the First Men endure. The Andals burnt out the weirwood groves, hacked down the faces, slaughtered the children where they found them, and everywhere proclaimed the triumph of the Seven over the old gods. So the children fled north -

The striking thing about this account is how the Faith of the Seven has softened over the years. While the High Sparrow is currently strutting around like Savonarola whipping up an unhealthy degree of fanaticism, the Faith is now otherwise very different from that described by Luwin and while these points have been discussed before they bear repeating. In the first place it seems significant that the established church of the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros is the Faith of the Seven. Taking into account elements of the Nights Watch oath which mirror prayers to the Lord of Light, the way in which the Light is emphasised in the observance of the Faith, the crusading zeal with which the Andals slaughtered the Children and burned the Weirwoods (as Mel is currently doing and as in our real world the Romans burned the druidical oak groves), and the symbolism of that star on the chest – over the heart – it is very tempting indeed to interpret the Andals as followers of the Lord of Light, adapting and with plenty of real world historical precedent, softening their religion after the conquest to be more acceptable to their new subjects; separating out the different faces of the One true god and adapting a fiery heart sigil into a seven pointed red star representing and encompassing the seven kingdoms of Westeros.

If so it also provides a further clue to what happened next. Luwin tells us, and the Children would undoubtedly agree, that the Pact was thus ended, yet in the North it should have endured still for the Neck was successfully defended against every effort by the Andals to break through. Yet something went wrong for instead of taking refuge in the vast forests such as the Wolfswood something else happened which caused the surviving Children to flee further north and beyond the Wall.

Thus far in the novels three major clues have been provided, which could be interpreted as describing the same core event from three different angles. The first is the song known as the Night that Ended and although we’re not told the words it seemingly recalls a great battle in which the Nights Watch were victorious over the Others. The second is also a great battle discussed by Jon and Ygritte, which supposedly occurred 3,000 years ago and was won by Stark of Winterfell and the Nights Watch. As told by Ygritte this was an incursion below the Wall by a great army of Wildlings, but the story ends with the fugitives getting lost in the caverns under the Wall and as we now know that “Gendel’s children” are in fact the Children, a more plausible explanation is that the losing side were not just Wildlings, but Children as well and probably all the “other Old Races”: in short the Others. The third event is the Night’s King business. At first sight the apparent early dating of this last one might be problematic for Old Nan describes him as the 13th Lord Commander which would suggest a very early date, and if the orthodox view is followed one comparatively shortly after the Wall was built. This however may only be an embellishment for according to Old Nan this 13th Lord Commander reigned as a King for 13 years before being overthrown. If, as we’ve discussed, it is the 13 year reign that is significant rather than his number on the roll, then he might be more recent and the Stark of Winterfell who overthrew him might therefore be the same Stark of Winterfell in Ygritte’s story.*

In short, what I’m suggesting is that at first the Children did take refuge in the Kingdom of the North, but that for some reason there was a falling out and the Pact spectacularly broken in that great battle.

As to why, there are a number of possible and interconnected reasons. If we first consider the Watch, the theory that the Wall was created by the Children to contain the Winter, means that originally it had a quite different purpose and might have been set up to police the Pact. If so that would explain the presence of high-born men from the southern kingdoms in its ranks. Maester Aemon explains that such was the ethos of the Watch that these men took no part in the defence of their own kingdoms and kin against the Andals, but if the Watch was spread across Westeros the southerners may actually have retreated northwards with the Children to whom they were bound by those pieces of dragonglass and how then to make their peace with the new rulers for peace there must have been for fresh volunteers to make their way north year after year, and how too did the prayer to R’hllor become part of the Night’s Watch oath and why is the Faith of the Seven so dominant in its ranks?

Then there’s the Night’s King. As we’ve discussed before he may indeed have been styled a King rather than a Lord Commander and in the north at least synonymous with the Starks of Winterfell. An intriguing little point here is that in both Ygritte’s story of the great battle and Old Nan’s story of the Night’s King it is a Stark of Winterfell who is victorious – not the King in the North or the King of Winter. Was this how it was sealed; that the Night’s King was overthrown by his younger brother who thereby became the King in the North in his stead?

As to why he was overthrown, as I pointed out in an earlier post it may be significant that in Old Nan’s story the fact he and his Queen had been sacrificing to the Others was only “revealed” after he had been deposed and we’ve discussed the possibility that the significance of his 13 year reign was that he had refused to be put into the earth at the appropriate time, but he may also have been seen as too close to the Children, to the Others, and that deposing him and expelling the Others beyond the Wall was an act of political expediency under increasing pressure from the south.

* just as an aside this might be a possible explanation for Sam’s uneasiness if he found that on that infamous “oldest” list of 674 Lord Commanders it wasn’t the 13th Lord Commander’s name which was erased but say the 500th !

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Thanks Black Crow, interesting lecture.

Two thoughts about the importance of 'Light':

Stannis' letter (the one where he claimed his kingship) was 'done in the Light', Davos found it a bit heretic, he just witnessed the burning of 'his' gods.

And I stumbled upon the title 'Light', strangely enough in relation to ... Cersei, it is one of her titles, I'm going to look it up.

That made me look at titles a little bit.

It struck me that there is no king of the Seven Kingdoms. Robert was Lord of the Seven Kingdoms. He named himself king of the Andals and the Rhoynar and the First Men and protector of the Realm.

That struck me as weird... sounds like a compromise that was somewhere made in time. Maybe after Roberts rebellion, maybe before that.

Why would the main power of the realm be only protector of said realm, not king? And why just lord of the Seven Kingdoms and not king?

I don't know if this choice of titles is important and if so, that there is relevance to this thread.

Anyway, I'm going to think things through and come back with it, here or in another thread.

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Professer Crow, mrazny thanks for the all of the thoughts. BC I like the 'light' connection and I think it's funny Davos thought Stannis was a heretic. I also like the idea from mrazny that the NK wanted to stay with his queen, it's very romantic. I'm curious to read the third angle from mranzy, I think it will be interesting aswell. I wish we could figure out why Joruman was involved with stopping the NK, what was he doing that the FF feared?

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Angle 3 - a combination of legend theorum.

This one really has so many potential sub-points, but I'm just going to flesh out two main sub-sects of this, and all of it with this seems to rely on a religious conflict for most of the motivations.

First and the biggest base assumption (which is entirely that, a large assumption), is relating the Night's King to the Long Night. The minor points of support are the fact that a human had some sort of peaceful interaction with the White Walkers that by legend were the threat within the Long Night and the big imposing future fear. If there was already a Long Night pre-Night's King, that would pose a difficulty for the Leader of the Watch to be marrying a White Walker, unless very specifically corrupted (which is still on the table). Or that the resolution to the Long Night involved specific Human interaction with White Walkers in some tradition and ritual, including perhaps the LC marrying and sacrificing with a White Walker (also still on the table).

The Old Nan legend says the Long Night lasted a generation. I understand the difficultly with *recent* winters being roughly as long as 13 years and Old Nan's Long Night sounds more brutal than that, but with Bran's constant "nearly a man grown" talk, 13 years is pretty close to a generation. If the Night's King was party to the Long Night, and his reign was 13 years, those aren't details that override each other automatically.

There is a division between the Wildlings and the general First Men population. I started to talk in Angle 1 about the Wildlings potentially being close to the Children when they fled to the forests to avoid the rule of the King in the North. The Stark in WF enlists the help of Joruman, who may or may not have been King beyond the Wall, but Joruman's legend links with the Wall for certain. It being his horn as a threat to the Wall is not coincidence. And it's link to the Giants is also specific. Whether that just means this business was soon enough after the creation of the wall or *was* the creation of the wall is not clear. But unless Joruman lived beyond the lifespan of a typical man (or was a Giant), the wall's creation and the Night's King are in close proximity. This aspect makes any Post-Andal angle more difficult, unless this King beyond the Wall just happened to also be named Joruman (possible), or the name Joruman was inserted to make it seem older than it was (possible).

So I'm angling first that the Wildlings themselves are men that simply grew closer to the Children, and by the time of the Night's King, would not acknowledge the King in the North as their leige, and in effect were a buffer between those King like First Men and the Children. The Stark in WF was in effect the Last Hero and had to seek out the children after his brother unleashed the Long Night. I'm making some other huge leaps so bear with me a moment. He needed the help of Joruman, a leader among the Wildlings to seek out the lead greenseer, who actually made his home up in the cave where we found leaf. White Walkers were becoming more and more abundant thanks to the NK, and the band of heroes sought them out ( the end result requires joruman and the last hero stark to survive, but there's plenty of ways to color that). The Greenseer warns about Kinslaying, and perhaps warns in general about the blood of the Starks will always be involved in this resolution (This particular proposed details really could apply to both a pre NK wall, or this current because of NK wall).

Joruman's horn - if it's Sam's horn, has some detail links to the dragonbinder horn Euron found. It wakes Giant's? Giants were used for the construction of the Wall? Joruman, Mormonts, Giants breaking chains, *Slavery is specifically abhorred in Westeros while it's rampant everywhere else*... Nothing i've thought through fully reconciles all of this, but it's the second key to the puzzle, it really feels that way

So hasty not fully reconciled proposal. The horn is made for Joruman, allowing him to bind the Giant's and utilize them to depose the Night's King and end the long night. To help this become a more permanent resolution, he uses the Giant's to build the wall and puts them to sleep, specifically so that they cannot be used as slaves anymore than this purpose. Maybe some giant's mate with first men to keep their blood alive and settle on Bear island to become mormonts? Joruman is the last giant and agrees to help with all of this, but mates with Men to keep their line alive. The Wildlings respond to strength and power and naturally were led by the Giants at first?

Ugh

So that still needs work.

The other thought. We had an Andal invasion. We had Children at Moat Cailin. The Andals did not conquer the north.

Eventually the children were north of the Wall. Wildlings were north of the Wall, and somehow Andals helped man the wall.

The Night's King is a dramatization of that shift. The Stark in Winterfell agreed to the peace with conditions, and changed the Night's Watch away from its darker dimensions specifically to appease the Andals to become King in the North, and specifically that the North wasn't the Seventh kingdom, that the North never had a King int eh North before the Night's King. The religion of the Seven propagating north is what led to the *seventh* kingdom, and with it, men fled north of the wall who felt it a heresy, and the Stark in Winterfell had to depose his brother to earn his title. The Andals assisted in manning the wall. The Starks telling of it would include the wildlings for flavor and to justify the kinslaying, and some less extreme worship of the old gods began in the north.

I'm not a fan of the last sub-angle. Though I do wonder about the seven kingdoms business. Just coincidence that the Andal invaders followed the seven? Or the seven kingdoms, and how the Andals invaders had to deal with the stranger kingdom of the north, and assist with something Battle for the Dawn righteous-esque? and their much more Rh'lor-esque religion became the Seven as they know it now? Though they wouldn't give credit to those heathen Northmen for the restrcuture of their religion, so they retold their origin for the Andals to have been the seven before they fled essos?

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the theory that the Wall was created by the Children to contain the Winter, means that originally it had a quite different purpose and might have been set up to police the Pact.

This is one of the pieces that is not reconciled with my "Angle 3". And the one that i think is the most troublesome. It's possible but not all that likely that the Night's King was Pre-Wall. At the time it could've been just a far north outpost, called the Watch originally. When the *night's* King unleashed the Long Night, the watch that now had a wall to maintain would've been changed to the Night's Watch, hoping to prevent the next Long Night. All of this relies upon the Night's King in sense being Man's first contact with the White Walkers.

All possible, but not thoroughly supported in the text.

Like Free Northman has pointed out in the past, very creative, very interesting, not yet supported by the story we've been told thus far. I'm hopeful we can find some stronger ties to the evidence, but your latest "lecture" has a strong base, and Ygritte's battle and your supposition within does point to the Wildling's being allied with the Children aspect. Perhaps there are three First Men camps? the wildlings very close to the children, the wildlings very close to the giants (Joruman), and the First Men who kneel to the Starks? With a Stark that got close to a White Walker...

EDIT: well that just jumped out in my mind, its a flash in the pan, so won't be very fleshed out or supported...

First Men HATE slavery. Three camps... Men enslaved by Giants, Men enslaved by White Walkers, Men enslaved by Children. Joruman, horn that binds giants, Joruman, possible original mormont with the Giant's breaking free of chains, The Stark in Winterfell and the Wildling King Joruman, combine to break free from their slavers the white walkers and the giants... a whole bevy of holes to navigate here, but could be a kernel of truth in there...

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Thanks Mrazny for the angle-posts. Food for thought.

I'm inclined that GRRM indeed uses recent stories as a repetition of what happened before, sometimes with a twist.

The Nights King was a 'lord commander' who named himself king. To end his rule there was a cooperation between Joramun and the Stark King of the North. But I seem to remember he was slain by his own men.

Joramun was the king beyond the wall, raiser of giants - and as I suspect a Mormont ancestor, his House rewarded for its loyalty to the Starks with Bear Island..

In ASOIAF there is another king beyond the wall who has raised the giants. He succeeds in an attack upon the Wall. He is faced by a Mormont Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, who dies at the hands of his own men, and by another Lord Commander with Stark blood, who is attacked by his own men and may have died.

(ETA ... and because Mance as king beyond the wall submitted to Jon, as Tormund did, the Stark Lord Commander effectively can be seen as become the King beyond the Wall?)

If my theorette is true Mance Rayder should be a Stark too. Or maybe Benjen has something to do with the uprising ... but for neither is evidence.

Sigh. I'm going to re-read the songs about the giants and their history ...

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It struck me that there is no king of the Seven Kingdoms. Robert was Lord of the Seven Kingdoms. He named himself king of the Andals and the Rhoynar and the First Men and protector of the Realm.

That struck me as weird... sounds like a compromise that was somewhere made in time. Maybe after Roberts rebellion, maybe before that.

Why would the main power of the realm be only protector of said realm, not king? And why just lord of the Seven Kingdoms and not king?

I don't know if this choice of titles is important and if so, that there is relevance to this thread.

Anyway, I'm going to think things through and come back with it, here or in another thread.

My understanding is that he is named thus because he is the Overlord of the seven kingdoms rather than the King of Westeros

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I think it's funny Davos thought Stannis was a heretic.

It actually reinforces the notion that the Light of the Seven and the Lord of Light are fundamentally the same but their followers are split into two factions each considering the other to be heretics

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...and as we now know that “Gendel’s children” are in fact the Children...

I've found plenty of posts in previous Heresy threads stating that this is 'known' but I haven't been able to find one that explains how this is known.

What is the evidence for this? Did the Children say something to Bran about this?

It struck me that there is no king of the Seven Kingdoms. Robert was Lord of the Seven Kingdoms. He named himself king of the Andals and the Rhoynar and the First Men and protector of the Realm.

That struck me as weird... sounds like a compromise that was somewhere made in time. Maybe after Roberts rebellion, maybe before that.

Why would the main power of the realm be only protector of said realm, not king? And why just lord of the Seven Kingdoms and not king?

I think the simple explanation is that saying 'King of the Seven Kingdoms' just sounds weird and so GRRM found a more elegant way of expressing the title.

Certainly making him the 'King of Kings' would raise many real-world historical/religious connotations. Then people would read into it, draw analogies and come to all kinds of funny conclusions......hmmm

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It struck me that there is no king of the Seven Kingdoms. Robert was Lord of the Seven Kingdoms. He named himself king of the Andals and the Rhoynar and the First Men and protector of the Realm.

That struck me as weird... sounds like a compromise that was somewhere made in time. Maybe after Roberts rebellion, maybe before that.

Why would the main power of the realm be only protector of said realm, not king? And why just lord of the Seven Kingdoms and not king?

I thought it was like the historic difference between the King of Scots and the King of England. The King of Westeros has dominion over the peoples of Westeros (because they submitted to him historically) but not over their lands (because the local kings retained ownership by having submitted). If there was in the early days a symbolic or actual marriage between The Stark and the Others then things might have been different up North.

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Agree with above poster about Gendel's children. I too believe that they're really COTF, but i don't recall running across anything that proves it definitively. If anyone could lay down the evidence that would be great

Again its one of these things where there is no hard evidence as such and its therefore a matter of working things out. Here's Ygritte's story from SoS1:

Deeper he went, and deeper, and when he tried t' turn back the ways that seemed familiar ended in stone rather than sky. Soon his torces began t'fail, one by one, till finally there was naught but dark. Gendel's folk were never seen again, but on a still night you can hear their children's children's children sobbing under the hills, still looking for the way back up...

Jon then asks if this means the way under the Wall has been lost

Some have searched for it. Them that go too deep find Gendel's children, and Gendel's children are always hungry.

The first part is a classic Faerie story still found in Scotland and probably other Celtic cultures as well, although usually involving only a single individual - sometimes a piper who can still be heard playing as he tries to find a way out. The sinister twist here is the bit about those "that go too deep" and do find the children, because we know having now read ADwD that there are Children down there in the caves and that they're surrounded by bones.

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...Though I do wonder about the seven kingdoms business. Just coincidence that the Andal invaders followed the seven? Or the seven kingdoms, and how the Andals invaders had to deal with the stranger kingdom of the north, and assist with something Battle for the Dawn righteous-esque? and their much more Rh'lor-esque religion became the Seven as they know it now? Though they wouldn't give credit to those heathen Northmen for the restrcuture of their religion, so they retold their origin for the Andals to have been the seven before they fled essos?

As you'll appreciate I was working on Professor Crow's lecture some time before this version of the thread opened so that while it parallels Mrazny's work it wasn't a direct response, so I'm slowly working my way back through to see where we can mesh the two.

As I said earlier I agree that the Night's King business is ultimately the key to the story, but argue that he is a more recent figure than implied by the number 13 (hence the suggestion about Sam's uneasiness possibly arising from the erasure of a name much higher up the list) and that his overthrow is both the same battle told of by Ygritte and the one celebrated in "The Night that Ended".

There's an apparent objection to this theory in that Ygritte's story tells how Wildlings were defeated and Old Nan's tells how Wildlings joined with Stark of Winterfell to defeat the Night's King. The answer I think lies in this business of the Seven Kingdoms. According to Old Nan at the time of the Long Night there were 100 kingdoms, while Luwin without offering a number tells us that the period between the Long Night and the coming of the Andals was characterised by the forging of the Seven Kingdoms. This was presumably both a gradual business with certain of the new kingdoms being established earlier than others, and also involving a fair bit of coercion and conquest. I'd therefore see the origin of the Wildlings as what were known in Scotland as "broken men"; who had lost their original lords and lands and would not "kneel" to those who replaced them. Some, like the Children may have been forced northwards, others may have originated in the north but refused to bend the knee to the Starks, some indeed may have themselves been kings before their lands were taken. The point of course being that as we're specifically told, they only acknowledge who they want to acknowledge and there's therefore nothing inconsistent in wildlings under Joruman fighting alongside Stark of Winterfell against other wildings under Gorne and Gendel allied to the Night's King in the Battle for the Dawn.

Beyond that, to return to Mrazny's point above, I don't believe that the Seven aspects of the Andal faith and the Seven Kingdoms are co-incidental and that the Andals' original belief in the Lord of Light was adapted thus for political reasons (hence Davos regarding Mel as a heretic, just as in our world Catholics and Protestants although both professing their belief in Christ regard each other as heretics). The cunning point of this being that there are only six Andal kingdoms, not seven which hints once again at some kind of deal with Stark of Winterfell - yes we will have peace, but you must expel the Others and allow the Faith to be practiced north of the Neck

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