The Old Gods - The Gods of Ice and Fire (Long Theory)

[Arya kiddin']

It's funny, I missed a lot of things in the books that I learned later on the forums, and while this is a fantastic analysis, I had the idea that Weirwoods were using blood as "fuel" right from the beginning of the first book, where Ned is cleaning is sword underneath the Winterfell heart tree. I thought it was common knowledge actually. Right from the beginning their colours and haunting descriptions, not to mention links to the past and the children of the forest, were too striking to ignore. Great read anyway!

Thanks. Nice to see you agree with it. I think it's admirable that the idea came to you naturally. :)

[mrlukeduke]

Just to be clear, I didn't catch the level of detail you did! Only that the trees might have been absorbing blood early on. That they are a sort of incarnation of or harmonising element to Ice and Fire was really intriguing and novel. I began typing a much longer response about a theory I have today that ties in with yours, but it got out of control and started turning into its own thread! So I'll post it separately tomorrow and reference some of your great insights if that's ok.

Didn't mean to sound pretentious but my post did come off like that! I shouldn't type in a hurry... :bang:

[Arya kiddin']

Just to be clear, I didn't catch the level of detail you did! Only that the trees might have been absorbing blood early on. That they are a sort of incarnation of or harmonising element to Ice and Fire was really intriguing and novel. I began typing a much longer response about a theory I have today that ties in with yours, but it got out of control and started turning into its own thread! So I'll post it separately tomorrow and reference some of your great insights if that's ok.

Didn't mean to sound pretentious but my post did come off like that! I shouldn't type in a hurry... :bang:

Sure thing.

And you didn't sound pretentious at all, sometimes good ideas just come into your mind. :)

[mrlukeduke]

Curious, what do you make of the dying weirwood in Winterfell? It *seems* as if it's dying of cold, i.e. literally freezing to death, and not just going dormant. If the trees really do represent a harmonising component to Ice and Fire magics, why is the heart tree so affected? (Recall it's a heart tree not just a regular weirwood).

Is it simply because of the looming presence of the Others? Yet they are not yet so far south. So it's not a perfect inversion of burning (excess heat vs excess cold). Then what about blood sacrifice? Does it need regular 'top ups'? Is it related to there always being a Stark in Winterfell? Why? Etc.

Thanks in advance!