Heresy 110

[Melifeather]

Hope this works...

http://zap2it.com/blogs/game_of_thrones_season_4_oathkeeper_synopsis_confirms_major_white_walker_theory-2014-04

[Armstark]

Would anyone be able to post screen shots of the Nights King and the 12? And where is the missing Queen?

Here you go:

http://imgur.com/a/EKL7q

[Lord Martin]

I think this scene asks more questions than it answers. It was well done combining g and confusing several northern myths and even suggesting some of our beliefs could be wrong.

First, wasn't the nights king killed by the Stark in Winterfell? So is that a false tale? Is Nights King a title, not a person? Either begs many questions.

Second, I think I counted nine ice spires around the alter where the baby was changed. It reminds me of the Weirwood grove where Jon and others take their vows. Similarly, there seemed to be 13 Others aside from the one brining the baby. Again this recalls two northern myths, Nights King was the 13th LC and Last Hero was 13th member of his band. (I have a personal crackpot that those two myths different versions of the same tale and that the Last Hero sacrificed his son to survive in Nan's story and is the mythical NK.)

I figured this thread would be blowing up today! Heretics never disappoint!

[Yield.]

I think this scene asks more questions than it answers. It was well done combining g and confusing several northern myths and even suggesting some of our beliefs could be wrong.

First, wasn't the nights king killed by the Stark in Winterfell? So is that a false tale? Is Nights King a title, not a person? Either begs many questions.

Second, I think I counted nine ice spires around the alter where the baby was changed. It reminds me of the Weirwood grove where Jon and others take their vows. Similarly, there seemed to be 13 Others aside from the one brining the baby. Again this recalls two northern myths, Nights King was the 13th LC and Last Hero was 13th member of his band. (I have a personal crackpot that those two myths different versions of the same tale and that the Last Hero sacrificed his son to survive in Nan's story and is the mythical NK.)

I figured this thread would be blowing up today! Heretics never disappoint!

No actually the NK wasn't killed. Here's the text:

He brought her back to the Nightfort and proclaimed her a queen and himself her king, and with strange sorceries he bound his Sworn Brothers to his will. For thirteen years they had ruled, Night’s King and his corpse queen, till finally the Stark of Winterfell and Joramun of the wildlings had joined to free the Watch from bondage. After his fall, when it was found he had been sacrificing to the Others, all records of Night’s King had been destroyed, his very name forbidden.

From the text we see he was deposed and struck from the records, thus why we know little of him and why his name is unknown to modern day Westeros. Many people believe (myself included) that he was the younger son of Winterfell and his name may have been Jon Snow because of the way Ygritte reacts when Jon tells her his name. She winces and says 'an evil name.'

As to the second of your post there are 10 spires/uprights and one in the center. I counted 12 companions to the Ice King and they too are in what looks like all black. I think if they are the sons of Craster there has to be more of them per show canon of his having had 99 boys.

Incidentally guys the HBO wiki has since retracted that the Ice King is the Night's King.

[Lord Martin Sheol]

Here you go:

http://imgur.com/a/EKL7q

As you can see here, Lord Martin, there are ten ice spired.

[ladyinblack]

This started out as a much shorter post, but you all have been so inspiring, that it's turned into a bonafide essay. . . so if you'd rather ignore it and discuss something else, I totally understand! It may have to be in its own thread, but I wanted to give anyone here interested a chance to see it first, while I'm still working it out. I'll put it into 2 separate posts, for the sake of length. Part II (and probably VI) are underway, I'd hoped to finish the bit about the Singers before tomorrow, but that's ok, the show will hopefully give us more to discuss!

Dedication

For the Heretics

Theyve taken the skeleton

Of the Great Irish Elk

Out of the peat, set it up,

An astounding crate full of air.

Butter sunk under

More than a hundred years

Was recovered salty and white.

From Bogland, Seamus Heaney

Once, at the National Museum of Ireland in Dublin, I got to see a bog body. The man's limbs were kinked, his clothes twisted and compressed, and his leathery nose slightly smushed as he lay as if half-frozen under the glass. Intrigued because of my interest in the preservation and rediscovery of the past, I was already on the page when I later discovered the painstaking detailing of the land and bog bodies in Seamus Heaneys poetry. The bog man represents, for me, the way the past can re-emerge and again be visible in the present. I never thought Id be drawing comparison with ASOIAF. Yet here I am, and what is pulled out of the bog, and out of the past, becomes a way of exploring the relationships between the Starks, Singers, Others and the past and memory.

Part I The Bones Remember

The best way to start may be to take a little detour through Heaneys poem Bone Dreams, in which the persona picks up a piece of bone he finds in a field (if I lost you at the word poem, I understand, skim a bit). The bone, which elicits the rough, porous language of touch creates a chain of associations and meditations on the relationship between bones, language and the past (I lines 3-4). For the sake of space the quoted sections are in the spoiler tag ( link to the full poem ):

II III IV

Bone-house: In the coffered Come back past

a skeleton riches of grammar philology and kennings,

in the tongue's and declensions re-enter memory

old dungeons. I found bān-hūs, where the bone's lair

I push back its fire, benches, is a love-nest

through dictions, wattle and rafters, in the grass.

Elizabethan canopies, where the soul I hold my lady's head

Norman devices, fluttered a while like a crystal

the erotic mayflowers in the roofspace. and ossify myself

of Provence There was a small crock by gazing: I am screes

and the ivied Latins for the brain, on her escarpments,

of churchmen and a cauldron a chalk giant

to the scop's of generation carved upon her downs.

twang, the iron swung at the centre: Soon my hands, on the sunken

flash of consonants love-den, blood-holt, fosse of her spine,

cleaving the line. dream-bower. move towards the passes.

In the first stanza of II the bones are intimately connected to language. Like the skeleton of the Great Irish Elk dredged up from the bog, the linguistic pieces that form the base and structure of English language are like bones, recovered from the tongues old dungeons (19-20). Tracing them, Heaney is able to see back in time through the languages historical transformations (Elizabethan canopies, Norman devices, French and Latin influences) to the bard (the Anglo-Saxon scop, Norse skald), the storyteller who helps create and preserve the legends and oral history of the time the collective memories (23, 24).

Looking deeper into grammar and declensions in III, Heaney finds Old English ban-hus, (bone-house) a word that means the torso, chest or body (34, 35, 36). He compares it to a structure that sounds just like a mead hall with fire, benches, wattle and rafters (37-38). The soul and brain inhabit the hall and at its heart is a cauldron of generation where all the bits that keep us vital and alive meet, swirling together (44-45). Heaney names it love-den, blood-holt, dream-bower (47-48). The body of language is like the mead hall, sheltering and creating the lifeforce.

For those of us trying to recall which Gringotts cart runs down to the archived English Lit brain vault, philology is the study of the structure and changing history of language. A kenning is a feature of Old English and Old Norse poetry, two words stuck together to mean a noun: whale-road = sea. (Or the online Free Dictionarys fitting example: storm of swords = battle). Heaney has just eloquently illustrated how philology helps us understand the languages transformations and how kennings are key features of the structure, but hes really doing more than that.

In part IV Heaney invokes philology and kennings as a way to open a gate (47). Come back past, he says, . . . re-enter memory/ where the bones lair // is a love-nest in the grass (46, 48-51). Language has become the reservoir for the past, for memory. And the physical representation of language, the past, and memory in the poem is the bone. The bones remember, Melisandre claims in A Dance With Dragons. I think they do more than just remember.

Mel says a mans shadow can be drawn forth from such and draped about another like a cloak, but she uses it as an illusion, and it is fleeting (ADWD). I think that there is something more powerful at work in the bones, and that for someone who knows how to look and listen (as Heaney suggests), the bones will be able to speak, bringing the past and memory forward into the present.

Part II in a while

Thank you. Beautifully done

[Clueless Northman]

It was quite expected that the babies would be turned into some kind of wights or WW, as had been amply shown in countless Heresy posts.

On the other hand, I'm wary to take at face value the whole thing - that there would be a WW leader close at hand, or that he's actually the Night's King. As long as we don't have more textual evidence from GRRM himself, I'd seriously doubt it and would assume it's creative license by D/D. I mean, we know Jon ignores all about Bran's whereabouts, yet the show just told us otherwise.

Still, very interesting scene.

Incidentally, this might be a hint that we're gonna see much more of WW in The Winds of Winter, and with it being probably released in less than 2 years, showrunners felt they could allow such revelations as a teaser of future seasons and incoming book.

As for Orys Baratheon, from the Maester's mouth (aka GRRM's World of Ice and Fire sample on his very own site readable right now)

Orys Baratheon was a baseborn half brother to Lord Aegon, it was whispered

It's confusing to me they show a WW with the crown turning Craster' s last son in front of 12 WW dressed in black leather. NK is the 13th LC, but nowhere does it say he has 12 followers. The Last Hero on the other hand has exactly 12.
Craster says he has 99 sons if so shouldn't there be more WW???

I assume - as others said, that the 12 other WW are the first 12 LCs. Which would make for an interesting take if we tried to make both Night's King and Last Hero fit together.

[Tyryan Lannister]

Incidentally guys the HBO wiki has since retracted that the Ice King is the Night's King.

Which I for one view as evidence that it is indeed the case and Martin had to yell at whoever wrote that copy about throwing a major spoiler from Winds out there

[Yield.]

There's something I can't quite shake free from my memory about the events from last night's episode...

Does anyone else remember that scene in season 1 when they are burning the bodies of Othor and Jaffer? I am pretty sure that in that scene Sam says the wights had been 'touched by a white walker'. Can't remember if he says he read it in a book or if he knows this due to his vast knowledge.

Anybody?

Either way it pinged my ole gray cells since that is what the Icy King does to the baby. So does that mean the baby is a WW or a wight?

[Yield.]

Which I for one view as evidence that it is indeed the case and Martin had to yell at whoever wrote that copy about throwing a major spoiler from Winds out there

I am inclined to agree! It seemed to me that they stuck their foot in it up to the hip and are now scrambling to take it back.

I really hope Martin comments on the show at least -- if not the NK, but I don't know that there is anything he can say that will not be a spoiler to the books other than the old 'the show is the show and the books are the books'.

[Turin Turambar1]

That place where they put the baby ( with 10 ice columns ) , reminds me of the weirwood grove beyond the wall where jon and sam took there vows

[TheTowerOfJoy]

Ep 2 Bolton and Ramsay discuss needing to get rid of Jon and his potential claim, and Locke volunteers to go to the Wall to accomplish this

Right, same episode where Roose sends Ramsay and Theon to reclaim Moat Cailin. Hopefully we get that next episode.

[Elaena Targaryen]

And of course what I should also have pointed out, is that although its a "different road" this has been canon all along

“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.”

:commie: :commie: :commie:

feels good!

I knew you would be dancing with this one...lol. I was suprised how tactile they made the "transformation". To me that is intriguing and again i'm interested in what seems to me a clear difference in the rider on the horse and the figures in black. As i noted in the spoiler i am getting an entirely different feel from them as if they are not the same.Indicated by how different they look as well.But a particular number seems like it's poping up again,it however seems the show has indicated the central figure as ...dun dun dun.

I noticed this myself and again have to make note of how they are clad.

So what if Craster, since in the books he is considered cursed, has to give his sons to serve the gods? What if the rider on the horse is a son of Craster and the sons are servants to these 13 Others, whatever they are, the Horned Lords? (Mm, I need to look up the quotes talking about how Craster is cursed) But like the quote above shows the wives knew "the boy's brothers", "Craster's sons", "the sons" were coming to collect the son so maybe that's it?

[TheTowerOfJoy]

Is it Chett that is messing with Ghost after he puts Craster' s kid out for the WW? Anyway in the scene he pours out his skin of water, then it freezes when the WW comes to collect the child. Does this help us in anyway with the debate of " The cold comes with Others or the Others come when it's cold?"

I think it does, no wight's anywhere in the scene.

[TheMtThatRides...Your Mom]

So....interesting episode! Just wondering what you guys think of Mel in light of that last scene. Is she their direct opposite then?

ETA - That is, can we assume anything about her theorized transformation based off of this?

[TheTowerOfJoy]

Ok, so was there time between the baby being laid down, and the "thirteen" showing up that just wasn't shown, or did they appear out of thin air? Because they clearly weren't there on the WW's approach to the "Heart of Winter" or whatever that ice structure was.

[Urrax2]

There's something I can't quite shake free from my memory about the events from last night's episode...

Does anyone else remember that scene in season 1 when they are burning the bodies of Othor and Jaffer? I am pretty sure that in that scene Sam says the wights had been 'touched by a white walker'. Can't remember if he says he read it in a book or if he knows this due to his vast knowledge.

Anybody?

Either way it pinged my ole gray cells since that is what the Icy King does to the baby. So does that mean the baby is a WW or a wight?

An excellent point. Proponents of the Craster's Sons theory may be dancing too soon. The baby may not have been wightified, but there is no assurance that he is popsicled either. Maybe his life force is being extracted for some other purpose.

[Melifeather]

feels good!

So what if Craster, since in the books he is considered cursed, has to give his sons to serve the gods? What if the rider on the horse is a son of Craster and the sons are servants to these 13 Others, whatever they are, the Horned Lords? (Mm, I need to look up the quotes talking about how Craster is cursed) But like the quote above shows the wives knew "the boy's brothers", "Craster's sons", "the sons" were coming to collect the son so maybe that's it?

Speaking of the Horned Lord, I think we need to carefully re-examine any passages where he's mentioned.

[Metopheles]

So, I throw in my hat, are these Others now some sort of gods? It has been said all the time, I mean could it be that they are some link between gods and mortal beings. Something like Titans?

[avernite]

An excellent point. Proponents of the Craster's Sons theory may be dancing too soon. The baby may not have been wightified, but there is no assurance that he is popsicled either. Maybe his life force is being extracted for some other purpose.

Well... what is the purpose of the scene if not to say 'people, I expected you to trust the wives, but since they're obviously too unreliable for you, have a scene that is more explicit'?