Heresy 6

[FanTasy]

Oh dear, I'm having a thinking spree...

Keep on the good work! Nice catch about tapping off Stannis weakening him (fire destructs, devours) and tapping off the Nights King possibly strenghtening him and changing him into a creature of the night, which is dark and full of terrors (ice preserves)

[hotweaselsoup]

A horn of gunpowder wouldn't be very much, you'd want something much more explosive than gunpowder if you wanted to bring part of the wall down :dunno:

Eira, it just struck me that getting people to swear an oath is another way of binding people to your will. If the Winterfell Stark and Joramun wanted to blacken the name of the Night's King then isn't magic the kind of excuse they would envoke to explain how he could get away with what he did?

But yes I agree that 'normal man by day but ruled the night' is fascinating. Are White Walkers associated with the night? What about if he was a warg? His beasts might be active even while the 'normal man' slept. I did wonder since the Night's King saw the woman from the top of the wall if maybe that implied that he was warging an eagle or similarly sharp eyed beast?

Good observation! Could the implication be that the Night's King was perhaps a very powerful skinchanger? Arya is very powerful as Nymeria at night, when she has her wolf dreams. Also, skinchanging might be the way that he bound his brothers to his will - by warging them? We're told that trying to skinchange a human is an abomination, but if he were so powerful (and fearless), he might have been able to do it.

Regarding the "Sworn Brothers" thing: a keyword search through the books shows that Sworn Brothers (capitalized) shows up in reference to the Night's Watch and the Kingsguard, both. Not sure if this means anything, but as the Kingsguard were clearly originated to guard a king, might the Night's Watch have started with a similar purpose? It would be very yin/yang if the Kingsguard, the White Swords, were there to keep a king alive, and the Night's Watch, the Black Brothers, were there to make sure a king didn't come back from death? (Okay, maybe not, but I like mirror images - what can I say ;) )

And let me add my thanks to Cap for that marvelous summation of all of Old Nan's tales. It really highlights the notion that Old Nan's "fairy tales" are perhaps anything but, and that maybe we should be trusting the oral history more (way more even) than any of the written history we've been shown. Of course, the fact that the representative of the Seven that embodies wisdom and truth is the Crone with her lamp might be a another hint to take Old Nan's stories pretty seriously. Also, that niggling feeling that Old Nan is more than she seems continues to gnaw at me. FanTasy's observation of Old Nan's "Crows are all liars" remark really made my spidey-sense tingle (and not just because she seemed to read Bran's mind here!). Something's up with her. Are we sure that she got herded off to the Dreadfort with the rest of the Bastard's captives?

And one final observation about the Horn of Joramun: Mance found the fake horn in a giant's grave, which makes me wonder why he was looking in that particular spot for Joramun's horn. We speculated in one of the earlier threads that Joramun might himself have been a giant.

[FanTasy]

And let me add my thanks to Cap for that marvelous summation of all of Old Nan's tales. It really highlights the notion that Old Nan's "fairy tales" are perhaps anything but, and that maybe we should be trusting the oral history more (way more even) than any of the written history we've been shown. Of course, the fact that the representative of the Seven that embodies wisdom and truth is the Crone with her lamp might be a another hint to take Old Nan's stories pretty seriously.

Ow ... never made that connection: Old Nan telling 'fairy tales' and the Crone as a symbol for wisdom and truth. Good catch!

What a clever b*****d GRRM is :devil:

[lostinwesteros]

I have "reached my quota for 'like's for today", but I have to say I LOVE all of the Old Nan stories. Thank you, tellers of Old Nan stories!

[Lummel]

You and your yin yang Hotweaselsoup! The kingsguard wear white and the nights watch wear black! Urg What an obvious parallel has been staring us in the face...both sworn not to have children or hold lands. Yes it makes sense to think of the watch maybe as the original model for the kingsguard, or a kings guard repurposed because of the Night's king business...

[Elaena Targaryen]

Oooo good thinking Lummel!

An oath, having men swear to HIM rather than the weirwoods?

That could piss plenty of people off, including Joramun the wildling who may have been threatened by this (if he lived beyond the Wall)... The Stark in Winterfell who may have been in charge of keeping the pact, and the Children. I agree that sorcery is a very good excuse. But, is it not odd that his name had to be erased if this was true? There are plenty of LC's that have gone rogue but they are named, would it be only because he was a Stark?

I'm starting to wonder if any of the kings beyond the Wall were related to the Starks, to maybe add to why Joramun wanted to help stop the NK (I'll explain him more later) Like what is goning on with this King Sherrit guy? What was he king of? It says he was a king of one of the kingdoms (which at this time it is the 7 kingsdoms) so why did he go atop the wall (?) to curse the Andal invaders? The wildings seem to believe they are related too (and seem to have a respect for) the Starks and I wonder if it's something more than Bael the Bard.

The other thought I had about the accusation of sorcery was that the NK was a skinchanger, but I think it would be very very hard to possess many men at the same time, and to skip and jump between them and manage to keep them friendly seems impossible. That's why I think that the brothers being wights makes more sense (perhaps also through skinchanging). Maybe the tales should say so if this was the case, but we know other information has been obscured about the NK so this could also be tweaked a little.

And, the white walkers are indeed associated with the night, they hid in the shadows and the darkness, hating the sun. Or brought the dark with them, it's a bit fuzzy.

Black Crow, I also think the Night's King was something else than the average bloke. How else would he survive that cold Lady...

That "normal man by day" is curious, I wonder if it meant a regular every day - every night kind of change, or if it was a long summer - long winter deal... Or if he was a halfling? Half man-half WW? Curiouser and curiouser...

So...AGOT 1st Bran "wilding women lay with Others in the Long Night to sire terrible half-human children" I have a couple crackpots to throw in. Could the NK be a half-human type of WW (Old Nan links him as scary) and the children also makes me want to connect the COTF somehow. Could the women that lay with the Others have been related to Joramun and the NK was his grandson? This could work if the mother was a Stark somehow. (it could be that the Starks policed both sides of the Wall and Craster is keeeping things going) At first I thought the only half-human we may have seen are COTF. So could Coldhands be the "monster" that is created from this union? Three times Old Nan says "beyond the Wall the monsters live, the giants and ghouls, the stalking shadows and the dead that walk...they cannot pass" I think the only one we could say would not be true is monsters because it's vague, but we have seen a monster.

Fantasy, good point about the soul, he gave her his seed and by that he gave his soul to the Cold Lady. So what did she do with it? Children? White mists? To make a parallel to Melisande and Stannis, and that ice preserves as opposed to consumes, Stannis' flame of life faded with every shadow baby, did the Night's King's life force become stronger from his *union* with the Cold Lady?

What would that lead to? A longer life? Increased strength? Increased powers, such as skinchanging abilities?

Another idea about the opposite effects/processes, Melisandre tapped into Stannis' *flame* in the process, weakening him, did the Cold Lady strengthen the Night's Kings *ice*, making him cold and strong?

The night is the time for ghosts, the white morning mists are ghosts returning to their graves according to Old Nan, the "stalking shadows" seem to be synonymous with the white walkers according to her (see Cap's post, top of this page, first paragraph) and in other cases shadows are synonymous with ghosts or dead spirits. Well, I am not sure where I am going with this but it seems connected to the WWs.

And last but not least it seems connected to the dead Starks in their crypts, that are kept in their tombs with iron, possibly.

If the Night's King had children, would the Stark in Winterfell have the nerve and heart to have them killed? I have suggested before that maybe they were taken as wards to Winterfell, if there were any children, since kinslaying is baaaad. At some point they could have been made part of the Stark line, or married into it, or made heirs from lack of other children. If so their traits would be part of the Stark heritage. This is pure speculation though, with the theme of brothers, siblings, cousins and wards, and the changing loyalties in mind.

Oh dear, I'm having a thinking spree...

My crackpot works here, if they are Starks and lay with Others to sire half-human chlidren, and the NK was one then they would need to bind the shades in the crypts with iron. Could these shades bring the white cold or reanimate the wights? The shades/ghosts have to do something right. The Starks are very connected and feel very responsible with the COTF, WW, Wall, and the wildings. No other house or warden has so much to keep and protect. I wonder how Val's "monster" might be brought in all of this because he is probably a Stark and was named moster. Maybe the NK got three wishes from a grumpkin and that's how he did everything, so all of this is irrelevant. Sorry to be so crackpot it's just I loved your post and I would have liked it twice if I could have.

[Eyron]

Thanks Elaena!

I do think the strange respect some of the free folk have for the Starks have something to do with them being related distantly, or that the Starks are supposed to play a major part in the coming winter and they remember why, some of them like Mance and Rowan.

Very interesting thoughts about the monsters, Coldhands and Craster's son... So maybe Coldhands was not being witty when he said "your monster, Brandon Stark". Maybe he is a son of Brandon Stark, another one a long time ago? They killed him a long time ago, but what is dead can never die, it rises harder and stronger, as we know. Well, this may be a little crackpottish, but it's a fun thought to entertain!

Hotweaselsoup, good point about the Night's Watch and Kingsguard and about Old Nan's lying crow!

I just wrote this in a discussion with Kissdbyfire about rereading Bran from AGoT, literally like a few minutes ago.

‘Crows are all liars,” Old Nan agreed, from the chair where she sat doing her needlework. “I know a story about a crow.’

I wonder about this too, at first I thought maybe he had told her about the crow dream earlier on, off screen, but she seems to have some special resentment towards crows. Her story could be about a lying crow she met herself, for some reason I think *her* crow and Bran's crow might be the same. She could have met Bloodraven don't you think? Made me think about her and Dunk, as you write below it's probably her kissing him in Bran's vision, and who was Hand of the King at that time? Maybe BR stood in the way for them being together somehow...

Maybe we'll learn in the next D&E :)

Another possibility is that the crowdreams are a reoccurring phenomenon, that she knows of others (another of her Brans? Lyanna?) who had them and that it did not end well, similar to the dragondreams mayhaps...

[Black Crow]

I'm hoping to get the White Walkers stuff posted later today but reading what's coming up already on Heresy 6 I'm very much struck by how closely connected the core heresies really are: White Walkers-Night's King-Starks...

[Lummel]

Yes they do seem to be connected. There must be a Stark in Winterfell (why?), the watch must be true (to what? to whom?), intimate relations with white walkers, the cold fell appearance of the early Starks hard people in a hard land, magic in the wall, magic in the blood, magic in the warging, the thirsty weirwoods, self-sacrifice...

Whether that means we're on to something or if we have just fallen into group think though is another question!

[FanTasy]

Just throw in a little bit I haven't noticed on earlier re-reads. Helmets are important, we learn in the books. They show who you are (antlers, dog-shaped, dragon).

Mance Rayders war helmet is made of bronze and iron and has raven wings on either temple. ASOS Jon II.

Sweet.

Just a helmet he found, or paid the iron price for?

Bronze and iron - First men connection.

Ravens - Bloodraven / COTF.

Could he (Mance) be not only an ex-crow but the son of a crow, of a certain Lord Commander? Brynden Rivers was not always stuck in a tree.

[Black Crow]

Professor Crow’s dissertation on the White Walkers, part the first.

According to what Sam discovered in his researches, they "...come when it is cold, most of the tales agree. Or else it gets cold when they come. Sometimes they appear during snow storms and melt away when the skies clear. They hide from the light of the sun and emerge by night...or else night falls when they emerge."

This sounds remarkably like the Ice Dragon: She was never quite sure whether it was the cold that brought the ice dragon or the ice dragon that brought the cold. As it turns out it was the dragon.

There are so far only two physical descriptions of White Walkers, but both of them very good ones; first in the prologue to AGoT and then in the fight below the Fist.

A shadow emerged from the dark of the wood. It stood in front of Royce. Tall, it was, and gaunt and hard as old bones, with flesh pale as milk. Its armor seemed to change color as it moved; here it was white as new-fallen snow, there black as shadow, everywhere dappled with the deep grey-green of the trees. The patterns ran like moonlight on the water with every step it took.

The Other slid forward on silent feet. In its hand was a longsword like none Will had ever seen. No human metal had gone into the forging of that blade. It was alive with moonlight, translucent, a shard of crystal so thin that it seemed almost to vanish when seen edge-on. There was a faint blue shimmer to the thing, a ghost-light that played around its edges, and somehow Will knew it was sharper than any razor.

The Other halted. Will saw its eyes; blue, deeper and bluer than any human eyes, a blue that burned like ice.

Behind him, to right, to left, all around him the watchers stood patient, faceless, silent, the shifting patterns of their delicate armor making them all but invisible in the wood. Yet they made no move to interfere.

The Other said something in a language that Will did not know, his voice was like the cracking of ice on a winter lake, and the words were mocking.

The watchers moved forward together, as if some signal had been given. Swords rose and fell, all in a deathly silence. It was cold butchery. The pale blades sliced through ringmail as if it were silk. Will closed his eyes. Far beneath him, he heard their voices and laughter sharp as icicles.

Now here’s Sam and Grenn in the retreat from the Fist as told in Storm of Swords 1:

On its back was a rider pale as ice… The Other slid gracefully from the saddle to stand upon the snow. Sword slim it was, and milky white. Its armor rippled and shifted as it moved, and its feet did not break the crust of the new fallen snow…

“Get away!” Grenn took a step, thrusting the torch out before him. “Away or you burn.” He poked at it with the flames.

The Other’s sword gleamed with a faint blue glow. It moved toward Grenn, lightning quick, slashing. When the ice blue blade brushed the flames, a screech stabbed Sam’s ears sharp as a needle. The head of the torch tumbled sideways to vanish beneath a deep drift of snow…

The wights had been slow clumsy things but the Other was light as snow on the wind. It slid away from Paul’s axe, armour rippling, and its crystal sword twisted and spun and slipped through the iron rings of Paul’s mail, through leather and wool and bone and flesh. It came out his back with a hissssssssssss and Sam heard Paul say “Oh” as he lost the axe. Impaled, his blood smoking around the sword, the big man tried to reach his killer with his hands and almost had before he fell. The weight of him tore the strange pale sword from the Other’s grip…

And then he was stumbling forward, falling more than running, really, closing his eyes and shoving the dagger blindly out before him with both hands. He heard a crack, like the sound ice makes when it breaks beneath a man’s foot, and then a screech so shrill and sharp that he went staggering backward with his hands over his muffled ears, and fell hard on his arse.

When he opened his eyes the Other’s armor was running down its legs in rivulets as pale blue blood hissed and steamed around the black dragonglass dagger in its throat. It reached down with two bone-white hands to pull out the knife, but where its fingers touched the obsidian they smoked.

Sam rolled onto his side, eyes wide as the Other shrank and puddled, dissolving away. In twenty heartbeats its flesh was gone, swirling away in a fine white mist. Beneath were bones like milkglass, pale and shiny, and they were melting too. Finally only the dragonglass dagger remained, wreathed in steam as if it were alive and sweating. Grenn bent to scoop it up and flung it down again at once. “Mother, that’s cold!”

In both passages we can see they are tall, gaunt and hard featured with white skin and bright blue eyes, wearing stealth armour like that said by Maester Luwin to have been worn by the Wood Dancers

In place of mail, they wore long shirts of woven leaves and bound their legs in bark, so they seemed to melt into the wood.

The one who did for Ser Waymar Royce also spoke in an unknown language with a voice likened to ice cracking on a frozen lake and his companions had voices and laughter sharp as icicles. This aspect should be treated with caution however since the language may be the Old Tongue and the description of the voice instead of indicating an unnatural crackling sound is, in the context, far more likely to be a literary metaphor indicating that the voice was as hard as his features. The point and an important one which bears emphasising is that there is nothing in their appearance to suggest they are anything other than human. Until that is Sam pinks one with a piece of dragonglass and watches him quite literally melt away.

What’s particularly interesting about this is that it mirrors exactly the fate of GRRM’s Ice Dragon, steadily melting in the warm sun and being blasted by dragonfire:

The ice dragon painfully raised its head once more, and made the only sound that Adara ever heard it make: a terrible thin cry full of melancholy, like the sound the north wind makes when it moves around the towers and battlements of the white castle that stands empty in the land of always-winter… there was no ice dragon to be seen. Only… a pond that had never been there before, a small quiet pool where the water was very cold.

While I understand that GRRM has denied that Adara’s world and that of the Song of Ice and Fire are one and the same, there is no question but that he is developing ideas first tried out in the Ice Dragon – including, it might be mentioned, the Land of Always-Winter and the ice castle seen by Bran in the learn to fly vision. Its obvious from Sam’s encounter that while human in shape the Walkers are made of ice and this is again consistent both with their shunning sunlight and being accompanied by a very intense white cold, just as the Ice Dragon was.

This reinforces the theory that they are the direct equivalent or mirror image of certain Red priests such as Mel and Moqorro, sustained by Ice rather than Fire.

What’s less clear is how corporeal they are although if we were able to figure that one out it would presumably also give us an equivalent insight into the Red lot. One school of thought holds that they are super-wargs capable of projecting themselves great distances and creating avatars of their human form rather than invading a convenient local host. This would explain their seeming ability to materialise out of mist or falling snow and to walk lightly on newly fallen snow, leaving no footprints. On the other hand the Ice Lizards who emerged in the snow on Adara’s world – and the Ice Dragon itself - did appear to be living creatures with an unfortunate tendency to melt and it has been pointed out that the Walker slain by Sam was fully formed with armour, weapons, blood (pale blue) and bones.

Again, however we come back to the indicators of a human origin. The most dramatic revelation appears to be that of Craster’s women when they’re trying to persuade Sam to flee with Gilly and her baby:

“…If you don’t take him they will.” “They?”… “The boy’s brothers,” said the old woman on the left. “Craster’s sons. The white cold’s rising out there, crow. I can feel it in my bones. These poor old bones don’t lie. They’ll be here soon, the sons.”

While this is the most explicit linkage to their origin in the whole story so far it seems for some strange reason to arouse fierce denial in some quarters on this board, yet it appears to be confirmed by what happens next, for having run for it, Sam, Gilly and the boy fetch up lost in a deserted village which isn’t Whitetree – and Small Paul comes in looking for the boy. Gilly declares “A babe fresh-born stinks of life. He’s come for the life.” At first this seems straightforward enough but then it turns out there are more Wights outside, some tucking into the last garron, but otherwise making no hostile move. It’s the baby they’re after.

This, I’ve suggested before, suggests there’s something in the genetic make-up of Craster’s sons; that they’re being taken not because they’re “fresh-born” and stinking of life, but because they have the ability to become blue-eyed super-wargs.

More later...

[Ser Leftwich]

Is the importance of Craster's sons as simple as incest?

The Targaryens have been known to practice incest and that seems to hold onto the "dragon blood" potential aspect of Targaryen personality.

There is a near universal Westerosi abhorrence to close incest, Old gods, the Faith of the Seven. Only the Targs openly flaunted that. Cousins being an accepted exception.

[Elaena Targaryen]

Is the importance of Craster's sons as simple as incest?

The Targaryens have been known to practice incest and that seems to hold onto the "dragon blood" potential aspect of Targaryen personality.

There is a near universal Westerosi abhorrence to close incest, Old gods, the Faith of the Seven. Only the Targs openly flaunted that. Cousins being an accepted exception.

Well it has been suggested that Craster may be a Stark who might be continuing some important tradition that has been lost in time. So the insest could keep the Stark bloodlines more pure to ensure that the offerings/sacrifices are acceptable. I don't think they kill Craster's sons, I believe it's very likely they are Craster's sons and other Stark children through out history that may have been offered, sacrificed, or some sired half-human and half-white walker. We know the Starks are extremely important concerning all of this, but since it has not been fully explained we have to speculate. I do however believe the Starks are just as impotant, if not more important, to this story than the Targs.

I am totaly convinced that the WW are the ice equivelnt to the red priest and their fire,and so many things can be connected or speculated on that it makes so much sense. We know the red lot take young slave children and raise them into preisthood which the priest are not normal human beings. So concerning the insest, if the Targs believed the PTWP would come from their line, and the PTWP may be the same thing as AA, and they practiced insest to keep blood lines pure, it may have been more than just for the connections to the dragons. We don't know what the prophecy really says.

On a side note it could be possible that a Stark (ice) needs to stop the evil of the red lot (fire) and this is the importance of Jon being both ice and fire, he could stop the fire because it's a part of him and he has the strength of ice to help. The fire consumes and the ice preserves. The dragons (fire) may need stopped as well and Jon is the ice dragon. If Jon did die, or had a near death experience it may awaken these things in him, what is dead may never die, but rises again harder and stronger.

ETA Btw Professer Crow great summary on WW and can't wait for the rest!

[Stark@heart]

Craster as a secret Stark? :ack:

Why not a Targ? Maybe everyone is actually decended from Targs or Targs & Starks? GRRM has made everyone paranoid, afraid we're gonna miss a big "got ya" that was hidden in plain sight. I like some of the more recent ideas/discussions and yes I have read alot of the postings, which go back months. I've tried to search for this topic but can't make it work so I'm gonna put it out there, not for shock value but because I really haven't seen it mentioned. I only found the books when HBO started promoting the series and this forum a few months after finishing Dance. This was probably brought up and shot down "in the beginning" but I wasn't around for that. So here goes...

Is it just me or do the Others sound like...vampires?

[RevengeOfTheStarks]

Hi all,

I'd taken a hiatus from from heresy but I really like this idea of one person summarizing a specific topic. Everyone's posts so far have been so great, and thank you so much Cap for hunting down all of the Old Nan references! I have always wanted to go back and find all her stories but it seemed like such a daunting task.

The Old Nan stories actually made me realize that not all of her stories have been proven true. It seems like her stories to Bran seem to be true more often than not, but I thought maybe I could write a piece about the bits that are thus far unproven, or seem to be disproved, and speculate about any grain of truth that might lie in them, or why her version might differ so much from what we've seen (for example the giants). This seems interesting to me, because I think a lot of the Old Nan discrepancies point to the way things used to be, but are no longer, for example the state of the giants.

This post is just a placeholder because I haven't quite collected all my thoughts on the matter yet, but the full post is in progress.

[Eyron]

Welcome back Revenge, excellent idea about Old Nans stories, I'm looking forward to it!

Nice post Black Crow, keep it coming :)

[FanTasy]

Is it just me or do the Others sound like...vampires?

Ha ... there are a lot of tales about the white walkers and the wights lusting for "red hot blood".

The wights being undead .. ASOIAF turning into a vampire story :dunce: I don/t hope so.

And I think it will be different.

There has been no description of wights or white walkers in book 1-5 feeding on the humans they kill - or drinking their blood.

So maybe the drinking of blood is something we haven't seen yet.

Or there is another explanation.

Wasn't there a story too about the wildlings drinking blood?

Maybe the blood drinking was done by a party that were called 'Others', but being different from the wights or white walkers.

Maybe ... the Children of the Forest? :devil:

[TheMtThatRides...Your Mom]

Also, that niggling feeling that Old Nan is more than she seems continues to gnaw at me. FanTasy's observation of Old Nan's "Crows are all liars" remark really made my spidey-sense tingle (and not just because she seemed to read Bran's mind here!). Something's up with her.

Isn't it obvious? Sometime ago, Old Nan succumbed to senility and dementia. The Old Nan we've met in the books is actually BR warging her.

[Eyron]

Hm, about the blood drinking, there could have been a slight confusion.

Old Nan said the wildlings drank blood, she says the Others drink blood... Well, she is probably right that someone is drinking blood, or what can be perceived as blood.

The sap of the weirwoods, or the weirwood seed paste that Bran had in the cave that had red veins that looked like blood.

Funny thing about Bran eating that paste, it was weirwood seeds... The tree gave him it's seed, heh. Is Bran preggers mayhaps? :drunk:

[Elaena Targaryen]

Craster as a secret Stark? :ack:

Why not a Targ? Maybe everyone is actually decended from Targs or Targs & Starks? GRRM has made everyone paranoid, afraid we're gonna miss a big "got ya" that was hidden in plain sight.

Well first Craster could very well be a Targ given Bloodraven being a member of the Night's Watch, the Lord Commander. I do understand you not wanting to buy into it but there are clues to Craster being a Stark. All we know is his father was a member of the NW and his mother was a wilding, but the name given to Craster is similar to Stark. Craster-Stark, might be or not. (and his wives believe the WW are their sons) Craster is a self proclaimed "godly man" and gives his sons to the WW when they could just take them. It's like he knows some ancient secret he's forfilling and we know the Starks are heavily tied into all of it. The Night's King (probably a Stark) and his queen were giving sacrifices to the white walkers. It just seems connected to me and maybe the Starks were supposed to do this but somehow this practise ended. Another thing is Craster recognised Jon right away as a Stark from his appearance maybe he knew Benjen but who knows.