Old Gods, cold gods and Starks: a Heretic re-read

[Black Lady]

I assumed it meant those were the most recent Starks, i.e those of the past 500 years or so? The family supposedly goes back what 10,000 years to Bran the Builder? What would the average length of rule be, 10 years? that would make for 1,000 tombs. The Bolton's only bent the knee to the Starks 1000 years ago? Even from that time on there could be 100 tombs, and I didn't get the sense that they walked by more than a few dozen and certainly not hundreds. My sense was there several levels with a 100 or so tombs each, and were there even 50 on the current level? Its definitely not full yet. Clearly most of that history is gone, and there are just a few stories remaining. Bran knows the stories of these ones because they are the most recent, and within written history most likely. Also, think about it, if no one is able to access your tomb then no one is able to ask who you where or what your story was and so any memory of you would easily fade to nothing. I don't recall Bran pointing out Bran the Builders tomb, which he probably would have. Meaning they don't have access to it.

I believe that the average rule is more somewhere around 30 years or so, about a generation long. Normally a son becomes the lord when his father dies. for example Walder frey is old and already rules his house for decades. In some cases the father resigned his post when he became to old, but the only example in Westeros i can think of now is Mormont. Of course sometimes the father dies an early dead, but if this happens to often the family will die out. So i believe you should look at how much generation there have been in those 10.000 year. In Westros most lords get their children at about twenty I think. that makes 10.000/20 = +/- 500 generations. that's a lot of tombes. And not only the lord has a tombe but also his lady wife ánd their children that makes a hell of a lot of tombes. Pretty much impossible for Bran to know who all those people are.

[Melifeather]

I got the impression that it wasn't tradition to include all family members in the tombs, or at least not to have separate crypts. Ned gave Lyanna her own crypt with her own statue. I think she's the lone female with that honor. Perhaps one crypt was used for the whole family with the one representation of the head of the family, the Lord of that family, at the entrance to the tomb?

[Black Lady]

The crypt continued on into darkness ahead of them, but beyond this point the tombs were empty and unsealed; black holes waiting for their dead, waiting for him and his children. Ned did not like to think on that.

From this sentence i got the impression that all of the children would have their own crypts but probably you're right. I don't recall Bran later talking about other females being down there. But that raises the question what happens to them? I thought these where like European medieval tombes. Those are from stone and covered with a big heavy stone, almost impossible to open after they are closed.

[EmmaoftheCanals]

I always thought it was the likeness carved in stone that was reserved for the Lords/Kings (and that Ned made the exception for Lyanna and Brandon). I also assumed that the families of the lords were buried in the crypts, but that they didn't get a statue...

[TheNorthernWarrior]

Yes I think each Lord would be buried with his wife and possibly kids, unless they grew up to become Lords themselves (then would have their own spot) or married into another family. If Lyanna had married Robert she normally would have been buried with him at Storms End or wherever according to Baratheon tradition. It was only because she died young and before marriage that she was buried there, Actually in Ned's chapter where he brings Robert down to pay respects to Lyanna, Ned thought "black holes waiting for their dead, waiting for him and his children". So I wonder if all Starks, no matter where they were dispersed too, were expected to be returned.

Normally you would have a statue of the Lord, then a plaque of some kind listing the other members of the family also buried there. Other members would not get a statue, Lyanna was a special case at the request of Ned. Brandon I guess was Lord for a minute so got 1 too, or also at the request of Ned. Now I wonder what would normally happen if Benjens body is ever recovered (assuming he is dead), would he be buried/burned with his brothers in the Night Watch or returned to Winterfell?

[nanother]

I always thought it was the likeness carved in stone that was reserved for the Lords/Kings (and that Ned made the exception for Lyanna and Brandon). I also assumed that the families of the lords were buried in the crypts, but that they didn't get a statue...

Indeed, I remember now. So other family members might be buried in the crypt as well. Yet, all we're ever told about is the long row of 'likenesses'. So were are these statueless graves?

ETA: @NorthernWarrior: Yeah that would make sense, to bury kids/wives together with the Lord - except, you'd have to open the grave for each family member that dies after him. Even worse, some of them might die before him, where are they buried?

[Black Lady]

In Holland our royal family has still a crypt. (I looked it up, most of sons and daughters that didn't became king/queen aren't buried there.) But to make sure that it doesn't get smelly down there and disgusting they embalm the body's first. That makes it also possible tot later open the grave is necessary. The same procedure is followed with the Pope.

However, it's not everywhere common use to embalm people before putting them in a crypt. In The Philippines people get buried in crypts or a sort of cascades from stone above the ground. They don't embalm their dead before burring them. So they probably took over this use from the Spain. My boyfriend is from a little village somewhere in The Philippines and he told me that all boys there had to prove their manhood by sleeping on the graveyard. So you could show that you're not afraid of ghosts. Sometimes the older cascades break and the story goes than the spirits are then set free. I don't know, somehow this made me think about this.

Do we have any idea what the starks do with their dead except for putting them in the crypt? It's also possible to preserve a body by freezing them. That would be very kings of winter like but also very stupid. I have the idea that at least years ago (before the wall?) the starks would want to do something with their dead that made sure they can't be resurrected.

[nanother]

oops, wrong thread! :blushing:

OK, now for real:

That's an interesting variety of burial customs, thanks for sharing. As for the Starks, it seems that they bury the bones - it's Lady's and Ned's bones that they send home. But then that might only be because the long-distance transport of corpses is not viable :unsure:

Also, now I remember that Lady's bones were buried (paraphrasing) in an ancient lichyard where the Starks buried their faithful servants.

Anyway, I wonder why they don't just burn them, like the wildlings do...

[Lady Olenna]

I assumed they didn't burn their dead because they didn't have the threat of the WW's. Conversely, the wildlings would probably bury their dead if the didn't fear them returning from their graves.

[Little Wing]

Maybe they are meant to be buried in the earth to be closer to the roots of trees. Maybe burning kind of takes away your chance at a second life if you're a warg, and maybe those old kings were often wargs? They didn't burn them, so they could continue in the trees, but put swords as a precaution? /slightly crackpot

[nanother]

That's a good point about warging... although, second life starts as soon as your body dies, doesn't it? So burning it afterwards shouldn't matter in theory. It might be that they simply didn't feel the need, as Lady Olenna suggests. We know there are graves in the Frostfangs (probably with some anti-spirit mechanism), so that might have been the old way, and the wildlings only started burning because it wasn't viable to keep burying and warding. Or burying might have been for kings/lords only. Still, the question remains: why try to trap spirits? Is there a good reason for it, or is it just superstition? I'd think burning releases spirits, and the wildlings don't seem to worry about that... Or, if it's a thing for royalty, is it meant to be a form of immortality?

[Little Wing]

That's a good point about warging... although, second life starts as soon as your body dies, doesn't it? So burning it afterwards shouldn't matter in theory.

Indeed, you're right.

The thing that also comes to mind is, Winterfell itself. On Evita's re-read, we came to see, chapter by chapter, Winterfell being described as almost a live organism. The Starks are tied to it and Ned feels apprehension on having to leave it, constantly telling himself that there is where he belongs, in Winterfell. Maybe some of that closeness to the land, Winterfell and the north is why they are buried with iron swords to keep them at peace, instead of burned. I know I haven't explained much, but I guess we'll comment on the Stark/Winterfell connection as we read along... It's like the Starks get their strength from Winterfell (much like Scarlett O'Harra is said to get her strength from Tara, in Gone with the Wind ^_^ ). Maybe they mustn't leave it even in death? They belong there forever? *goosebumps*

[nanother]

Yes, that... feels right.

[nanother]

As for the schedule, I think the next Cat chapter might be worth including. So it'd be like

Cat II

Bran II

(The Arya and Tyrion chapters can probably be skipped)

Jon II

(Tyrion II ? not sure)

Cat III should be interesting

Bran III

Jon III

Tyrion III (is that his only chapter at Castle Black?)

and then Bran and Jon from that point on. Am I missing anything?

[Black Crow]

I recall we discussed the other family members in the crypts business quite a while back and concluded from the descriptions that there's a long spine corridor lined with the statues/tombs, and that the wives and any other close family are buried in side chambers behind them - which would have made it easier for Bran and the gang to hide.

[Little Wing]

As for the schedule, I think the next Cat chapter might be worth including. So it'd be like

Cat II

Bran II

(The Arya and Tyrion chapters can probably be skipped)

Jon II

(Tyrion II ? not sure)

Cat III should be interesting

Bran III

Jon III

Tyrion III (is that his only chapter at Castle Black?)

and then Bran and Jon from that point on. Am I missing anything?

Yeah, fine by me. No like button, so have to do it like this :laugh: So, on to Cat II - the references to Winterfell as a living organism can be found in her chapter, so I guess it's worth a read from a heretical perspective. The rest is the letter from Lysa...

[nanother]

Catelyn II (Chapter 6)

One of the less inspiring and more depressing chapters...

Winterfell:

The castle had been built over natural hot springs, and the scalding waters rushed through its walls and chambers like blood through a man’s body, driving the chill from the stone halls, filling the glass gardens with a moist warmth, keeping the earth from freezing. Open pools smoked day and night in a dozen small courtyards. That was a little thing, in summer; in winter, it was the difference between life and death.

the direwolf:

Catelyn remembered the direwolf dead in the snow, the broken antler lodged deep in her throat. She had to make him see. “Pride is everything to a king, my lord. Robert came all this way to see you, to bring you these great honors, you cannot throw them back in his face.”

Self-fulfilling prophecy? Ned doesn't want to go - he might not put faith in signs, but he did have a powerful sense of foreboding down in the crypt. What's more dangerous: a pissed-off king in your own home, or entering a 'nest of adders', as Ned calls it, where you're totally out of depth? No easy decisions here...

Maester Luwin:

The maester was a small grey man. His eyes were grey, and quick, and saw much. His hair was grey, what little the years had left him. His robe was grey wool, trimmed with white fur, the Stark colors. Its great floppy sleeves had pockets hidden inside. Luwin was always tucking things into those sleeves and producing other things from them: books, messages, strange artifacts, toys for the children. With all he kept hidden in his sleeves, Catelyn was surprised that Maester Luwin could lift his arms at all.

(I wonder if he head something up his sleeve when he asked that last boon from Osha...)

Eyes and seeing, stressed in perhaps every single chapter so far: Jon's eyes that missed very little, the blind maggoty eyes of the direwolf, the blind eyes of the dead Lords watching, the watchful red eyes of the heart tree... There's also that lens they've just received - to help them "see" :angry:

Wind and cold:

Just after they were 'finished', Ned opens the windows:

The wind swirled around him as he stood facing the dark, naked and empty-handed.

Clearly, the guy's doomed.

It was all meant for Brandon. You, Winterfell, everything. He was born to be a King’s Hand and a father to queens. I never asked for this cup to pass to me.”

“Perhaps not,” Catelyn said, “but Brandon is dead, and the cup has passed, and you must drink from it, like it or not.”

Ned turned away from her, back to the night. He stood staring out in the darkness, watching the moon and the stars perhaps, or perhaps the sentries on the wall.

After Maester Luwin is announced:

Ned crossed to the wardrobe and slipped on a heavy robe. Catelyn realized suddenly how cold it had become. She sat up in bed and pulled the furs to her chin. “Perhaps we should close the windows,” she suggested.

Even so, she keeps shivering under the furs and is filled with dread as Luwin habds her the message.

She threw back the furs and climbed from the bed. The night air was as cold as the grave on her bare skin as she padded across the room.

Jon Snow:

“Your brother Benjen came to me about Jon a few days ago. It seems the boy aspires to take the black.”

Seems like he had a change of heart since the feast...

[nanother]

Posting this now, as I might not have the time in the next few days.

Bran II

:crying: :angry: I know it all works out fine, sort of, but still :crying: Anyway, this chapter gives a great deal of insight as to why, of all the Stark kids, Bran is the one to become a greenseer.

The heart tree:

Bran's scared of it.

He raced across the godswood, taking the long way around to avoid the pool where the heart tree grew. The heart tree had always frightened him; trees ought not have eyes, Bran thought, or leaves that looked like hands.

This sentiment he shares with his mother (and is also her 'special boy' - a coincidence?). Is it really the eyes and hands themselves that scare him, or the fact that he senses that it wants something from him?

Summer:

Doesn't have his name yet...

He was halfway up the tree, moving easily from limb to limb, when the wolf got to his feet and began to howl.

Bran looked back down. His wolf fell silent, staring up at him through slitted yellow eyes. A strange chill went through him. He began to climb again. Once more the wolf howled. “Quiet,” he yelled. “Sit down. Stay. You’re worse than Mother.” The howling chased him all the way up the tree, until finally he jumped off onto the armory roof and out of sight.

Listen to that wolf, boy!

How much does the wolf know? Premonition? Glimpses f the future? The intent of the Old Gods? They certainly wouldn't want Bran to go south, but would arranging something like this be within their power?

Also, the naming of the wolf:

In this, he's the odd one out among his siblings. None of the names he comes up with feel right. Why is he having so much trouble?

Winterfell:

To a boy, Winterfell was a grey stone labyrinth of walls and towers and courtyards and tunnels spreading out in all directions. In the older parts of the castle, the halls slanted up and down so that you couldn’t even be sure what floor you were on. The place had grown over the centuries like some monstrous stone tree, Maester Luwin told him once, and its branches were gnarled and thick and twisted, its roots sunk deep into the earth.

Last chapter, it was a man...now it's a tree...

also:

The builders had not even leveled the earth; there were hills and valleys behind the walls of Winterfell.

Bran:

could climb before he could walk. Nothing can dissuade him from climbing, and feels miserable if he can't. There seems to be a rather large disparity between his feelings about climbing and his dreams of knighthood...

Bran could perch for hours among the shapeless, rain-worn gargoyles that brooded over the First Keep, watching it all: the men drilling with wood and steel in the yard, the cooks tending their vegetables in the glass garden, restless dogs running back and forth in the kennels, the silence of the godswood, the girls gossiping beside the washing well. It made him feel like he was lord of the castle, in a way even Robb would never know.

Most of the time they never saw him anyway. People never looked up. That was another thing he liked about climbing; it was almost like being invisible.

He likes observing, while he himself is hidden. That's good, he'll get to do that a lot...

He liked how it felt too, pulling himself up a wall stone by stone, fingers and toes digging hard into the small crevices between. He always took off his boots and went barefoot when he climbed; it made him feel as if he had four hands instead of two. He liked the deep, sweet ache it left in the muscles afterward. He liked the way the air tasted way up high, sweet and cold as a winter peach. He liked the birds: the crows in the broken tower, the tiny little sparrows that nested in cracks between the stones, the ancient owl that slept in the dusty loft above the old armory. Bran knew them all.

He has a very intimate connection to his surroundings.

Most of all, he liked going places that no one else could go, and seeing the grey sprawl of Winterfell in a way that no one else ever saw it. It made the whole castle Bran’s secret place.

Like greenseeing could make the whole world Bran's secret place?

Also, to return to his difficulty naming his wolf - I think it reflects another important characteristic of Bran: he's a very deep thinker (for a 7 year old anway). All other wolves are named after some characteristics of theirs or their humans'. When Bran finally comes up with a name, it's different. It reflects the understanding Bran gained from his dream. Like, in his first chapter, he was thinking abut Gared's eyes. Jon saw them and drew his conclusion - Bran saw them and was thinking about them. Jon might be the observant one, but Bran both observes and seeks understanding. Of course, there's a significant age difference as well, so it might not be a good comparison :dunno:

The fall:

The man looked over at the woman. “The things I do for love,” he said with loathing. He gave Bran a shove.

Screaming, Bran went backward out the window into empty air. There was nothing to grab on to. The courtyard rushed up to meet him.

Somewhere off in the distance, a wolf was howling. Crows circled the broken tower, waiting for corn.

The crows:

Corn! Corn!

Old Nan told him a story about a bad little boy who climbed too high and was struck down by lightning, and how afterward the crows came to peck out his eyes. Bran was not impressed. There were crows’ nests atop the broken tower, where no one ever went but him, and sometimes he filled his pockets with corn before he climbed up there and the crows ate it right out of his hand. None of them had ever shown the slightest bit of interest in pecking out his eyes.

[Little Wing]

Ugh! Haven't seen you posted Cat and now Bran, too! I'll have to get back to comment on the morrow... :frown5: But I will be back!

[Little Wing]

Also, to return to his difficulty naming his wolf - I think it reflects another important characteristic of Bran: he's a very deep thinker (for a 7 year old anyway). All other wolves are named after some characteristics of theirs or their humans'. When Bran finally comes up with a name, it's different. It reflects the understanding Bran gained from his dream. Like, in his first chapter, he was thinking abut Gared's eyes. Jon saw them and drew his conclusion - Bran saw them and was thinking about them. Jon might be the observant one, but Bran both observes and seeks understanding.

I agree. It's like Bran knew not just any name would do. Both him and his direwolf are... special? He cares enough for his wolf not just to give him any old name. Or does he feel there's a name waiting to be chosen, the name? (I know I'm being difficult with my touchy-feely observations with prescient implications, but that's how I see Bran's arc, sorry!)

We see Bran's disposition towards watching from above, invisible to everyone below him. Very god-like... Although he expresses the wish to become a knight, we see him doing exactly what he really wants, only is not aware of because he's taking it for granted - climbing high above everyone else (flying?) and looking over them, watching people and events. The future that he faces, as we know from his future arc, is exactly what he likes doing best - watching while being invisible. So, Bran doesn't get what he wants (being a knight) but what he needs/what he really wants?

Anyway, Summer howling and warning him not to go - it can be interpreted in a number of ways. As a gift from the Old Gods, we can assume it's them working through Summer, warning him. But, the wolves don't need to be in tune with the weirnet all the time, do they? I don't know, but maybe the Old Gods were silent here and it was Summer's instincts at work, warning his little master, his other half, not to go. Animals in our world do it all the time. It's hard to decide when the wolves are acting up as animals reacting to their instincts or are being weird because they are magical beings, sent from the Old Gods...

Anyway, my own feeling on this is that no one, no magical influence made Bran climb that day. He does it all the time, and that day was no exception, especially as it was his last opportunity before leaving for KL. So, it was his own decision. Even when Summer howls, he still goes on, deciding for himself. I don't think the Old Gods interfered. (Maybe because they knew the future? That Bran will climb anyway and see Jaime and Cersei? They just let the inevitable happen?) I think Summer howling was just Summer being instinctive, sensing danger. But, there is the possibility of the Old Gods warning Bran through Summer, who knows... Seeing as how they need him to be the greenseer, I think they just let things happen, because they knew the outcome... or one of the outcomes. I think whatever the prescience the Old Gods have, it's not absolute and the future is not set. They have their glimpses, but it's just a possible outcome - free will still plays a role... The crow in Bran's dream is pretty much letting Bran decide on his own, whether to fly or die. It aims to make him fly, yes, but in the end - it's Bran's decision (and I mean this in more ways than one) ;)