aDanceWithFlagons Posted June 22, 2015 Share Posted June 22, 2015 Is the Heart of Winter a physical location far far north? Bran also saw dreamers impaled on ice spikes. Were these dreamers real? Were they actually impaled on spikes of ice in a physical location? I don't think so. Beyond the curtain of light sounds like somewhere over the rainbow. Only scarier. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wolfmaid7 Posted June 22, 2015 Share Posted June 22, 2015 I have nooooo idea if the heart of winter is a physical or no.Either or could work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sly Wren Posted June 22, 2015 Share Posted June 22, 2015 Is the Heart of Winter a physical location far far north? Bran also saw dreamers impaled on ice spikes. Were these dreamers real? Were they actually impaled on spikes of ice in a physical location? I don't think so. Beyond the curtain of light sounds like somewhere over the rainbow. Only scarier. The impaled on spikes sound like it could be propaganda to convince Bran to side the the creepy Children--they and their greenseers are victims (apparently of icy Vlad the Impaler); they have been persecuted. Please, Bran, save us--etc. Am hoping the spike images aren't real--but if they are, that will be interesting. And horrible. Scary over the rainbow works--though now I have zombie Judy Garland in my head. I have nooooo idea if the heart of winter is a physical or no.Either or could work. Same here--I think it will end up being tied to the stuff you talk about re: greenseers, but other than that, I don't know. Could be what Addicted to Snow said (could not make the quoting function work for yours, AtS)--somehow tied to the Starks' hell--but I'm still trying to figure out what that means. So--if I'm reading us all right, we're clearer on tower of joy than Heart of Winter? No idea if that's good or not. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Voice Posted June 22, 2015 Share Posted June 22, 2015 Is the Heart of Winter a physical location far far north? Bran also saw dreamers impaled on ice spikes. Were these dreamers real? Were they actually impaled on spikes of ice in a physical location? I don't think so. Beyond the curtain of light sounds like somewhere over the rainbow. Only scarier. The impaled dreamers were seen when Bran looked into the Crow's third eye -- and saw that it was filled with a terrible knowledge. Whereas Bran saw the Heart of Winter when looking at physical places in the North, beyond the Wall. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prince of Ghost Posted June 22, 2015 Share Posted June 22, 2015 Does anyone have a link to the Sable Hall wager type site? I would be interested in looking at it, possibly placing a wager in relation to ASOIAF.Edit:spelling Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wolfmaid7 Posted June 22, 2015 Share Posted June 22, 2015 The impaled on spikes sound like it could be propaganda to convince Bran to side the the creepy Children--they and their greenseers are victims (apparently of icy Vlad the Impaler); they have been persecuted. Please, Bran, save us--etc. Am hoping the spike images aren't real--but if they are, that will be interesting. And horrible. Scary over the rainbow works--though now I have zombie Judy Garland in my head. Same here--I think it will end up being tied to the stuff you talk about re: greenseers, but other than that, I don't know. Could be what Addicted to Snow said (could not make the quoting function work for yours, AtS)--somehow tied to the Starks' hell--but I'm still trying to figure out what that means. So--if I'm reading us all right, we're clearer on tower of joy than Heart of Winter? No idea if that's good or not. Oh i definitely think that the Starks are intimately connected and i don't think it will lie contrary to GS involvement .This being a place one can travel to or not is something i'll be very excited to find out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Black Crow Posted June 22, 2015 Author Share Posted June 22, 2015 A state of mind that's described in explicitly geographic terms--far north, beneath the aurora borealis? :mellow: Maybe, if that had been the only feature of Bran's dream, but no, the heart of winter segment immediately follows another geographic journey, a journey to the southeast, to a place we know for a fact exists on the map, the Shadow by Asshai.Why should the one journey be so literal, and the other so internal and figurative, when it's much more fitting to say that he's glimpsing, with his dreamers eyes, the origin points of the Fire and Ice threats that will eventually descend upon Westeros--keeping in mind that Dany's dragon eggs supposedly came from the Shadow. But the point is that Conrad's multi-layered Heart of Darkness also had a geographical location. :cool4: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Black Crow Posted June 22, 2015 Author Share Posted June 22, 2015 Agreed it's geographical. The vision takes Bran to "places," not just a Winter state of mind. But I doubt it's just that Bran saw the place of the Heart of Winter and it was filled with a million White Walkers. Could be--Martin could just be copying Buffy. But I think that perhaps the Shadow and the Heart of Winter are both places driven/affected by/created by a mindset. Or a certain kind of magics used by a mindset. Could be there's a "the horror, the horror!" kind of moment coming. Bran's reaction to the vision at least makes that feasible. And that horror could be tied to the kinds of magics/mindsets that thrive in and/or create places like the Shadow and the Heart of Winter. Exactly so :thumbsup: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
addicted to snow Posted June 22, 2015 Share Posted June 22, 2015 GRRM has said that PoV character would visit the Heart of Winter... So it is most definitely a physical place... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Black Crow Posted June 22, 2015 Author Share Posted June 22, 2015 Oh i definitely think that the Starks are intimately connected and i don't think it will lie contrary to GS involvement .This being a place one can travel to or not is something i'll be very excited to find out. It may rather depend on this hive mind business. I suggested in the last thread that the greenseers are not the leaders of the tree-huggers in a conventional sense but rather the interface between the living and the hive, and if so then by becoming a greenseer Bran would be able to travel there and see again what the crow showed him. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheSmallOther Posted June 22, 2015 Share Posted June 22, 2015 Agreed it's geographical. The vision takes Bran to "places," not just a Winter state of mind. But I doubt it's just that Bran saw the place of the Heart of Winter and it was filled with a million White Walkers. Could be--Martin could just be copying Buffy. But I think that perhaps the Shadow and the Heart of Winter are both places driven/affected by/created by a mindset. Or a certain kind of magics used by a mindset. Could be there's a "the horror, the horror!" kind of moment coming. Bran's reaction to the vision at least makes that feasible. And that horror could be tied to the kinds of magics/mindsets that thrive in and/or create places like the Shadow and the Heart of Winter. Hehe. Bran saw the Heart of Winter and himself, sitting on the new polished tree with thousand roots. Commanding armies of wights, white walkers, and not to forget, children of the forest. :devil: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Black Crow Posted June 22, 2015 Author Share Posted June 22, 2015 GRRM has said that PoV character would visit the Heart of Winter... So it is most definitely a physical place... Its ambiguous: "Of course, Iceland is relatively small. Beyond the Wall is considerably larger than Iceland—probably larger than Greenland. And the area closest to my Wall is densely forested, so in that sense it's more like Canada—Hudson's Bay or the Canadian forests just north of Michigan. And then as you get further and further north, it changes. You get into tundra and ice fields and it becomes more of an arctic environment. You have plains on one side and a very high range of mountains on the other. Of course, once again this is fantasy, so my mountains are more like the Himalayas. But, you can always play with these things in fantasy.And what lies really north in my books—we haven't explored that yet, but we will in the last two books." http://www.smartertravel.com/blogs/today-in-travel/game-of-thrones-exclusive-george-martin-talks-season-the-winds-of-winter-and-real-world-influences-for-song-of-ice-and-fire.html?id=10593041 Its actually a pretty good interview all round, touching on all sorts of influences. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheSmallOther Posted June 22, 2015 Share Posted June 22, 2015 What happened in Buffy? And yes, the fact that Bran cried makes it intriguing. Of course, lots of scenes in that book would make a grown man cry! It is intriguing. Bran is not the one who cries whenever he can. He managed not to turn his eyes during beheading scene at the beginning. There was something either very terrible, or very unexpected in the heart. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wolfmaid7 Posted June 22, 2015 Share Posted June 22, 2015 Does anyone have a link to the Sable Hall wager type site? I would be interested in looking at it, possibly placing a wager in relation to ASOIAF.Edit:spelling Nope! and i think if i'm not mistaken the mods or admin have a problem discussing sites like that on this site. It may rather depend on this hive mind business. I suggested in the last thread that the greenseers are not the leaders of the tree-huggers in a conventional sense but rather the interface between the living and the hive, and if so then by becoming a greenseer Bran would be able to travel there and see again what the crow showed him.I can definitely see the the hive organization being in place BR's whole thing about "the trees are calling" when he ended his lesson with Bran is a hint in that direction which makes it a bit more scary because as i said last thread BR might not actually be BR Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WhitewolfStark Posted June 22, 2015 Share Posted June 22, 2015 @ Voice of the First Men The kind Bran meets. They sing the song of Earth, not Ice. Worship of the Old Gods is Life-based and Earth-based religion. The force that motivates the Others is anti-life, and seeks to terraform Planetos into a froze, dead habitat.To speak about the trope library that we're skirting around here for a moment:Again, this speaks to the traditional "Earth" faction that is found in Fantasy/Romance. They're typically the source of "True Neutral" in a story, as they're supposed to be personifications of the Earth if not the voice of the Earth. The Earth is also where the battle between good and evil takes place and ultimately they'll choose to give a slight nudge of help when a certain line is crossed, when they do as much they're supposed to be representative of the Earth itself giving aide.In a Romance, the battle is between Heaven and Hell, with God or Gods recruiting a Hero and company, while the Demons recruit a Villain and company. On each side there's a mirroring character for each person as you would chess pieces on a chess board. If you have a High Priestess on the "good guys" side, then you'll have a Wicked Sorceress on the "bad guys" side as her mirror. The Loyal Sidekick's mirror is the Cowardly Henchman, etc. The viewpoint that's had is that you're either Good or Bad, with no room in between if you're human--you're either for the quest or against it in a straight out Romance/Fantasy. The closer you get to myth the more demi-god-like the heroes get and the more demonic the villains get. The further away from myth you get and the grayer and more human the characters get, though there's still a definite line between good and evil all the same, Romance is not the genre of subtlety and nuance (Fantasy is by contrast a bit more nuanced than its antecedent, but that's subject for another discussion).The only group that escapes this dichotomy is the Earth Faction, which again is supposed to be a personification of the Earth itself, the only Neutral ground in the battle between Heaven and Hell. I do think that the Children of the Forest are a separate faction, but I think GRRM has given them more motives and a stake in the game than traditional fantasy or romance would give them. Dwelling more on the weirnet--I do think the Children are working towards preserving the weirnet, which is why they're okay with dying out as a race. What conflict will come from the weirnet and Bran will be with how Bran accesses the weirnet and just how much he can try and preserve his individuality without succumbing to the weirnet himself--teaching himself how to use the weirnet as a tool while remaining loosely associated. Which goes back to the warnings Bran's heard about warging--not to do it for too long, or else he'll loose himself inside whoever he's warging--same concept, IMO.The Children will try and use Bran to help them preserve the weirnet, and Bran will likely do so, but won't do so blindly in the end.The biggest factor I think will come down to how the weirnet responds to blood sacrifice, IMO. That's going to be important lure for Bran (if the sacrifice occurs while he's hooked up--I'm going to guess it'll feel like the best drug rush anyone's ever felt) but also a turn off as well, which will make the chapters much more interesting moving forward. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Black Crow Posted June 22, 2015 Author Share Posted June 22, 2015 And so far as this particular trope is concerned its also important to bear in mind GRRM's repeated rejection of good versus evil and embracing of greyness both in situations and characters Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WhitewolfStark Posted June 22, 2015 Share Posted June 22, 2015 And so far as this particular trope is concerned its also important to bear in mind GRRM's repeated rejection of good versus evil and embracing of greyness both in situations and characters Which is what I say when I usually bring up this trope library. It's Melisandre's world view (well-defined good and evil that is), and I think Melisandre's view is the wrong way to view the conflict (and yet how a good number of readers do view the conflict through her), and I think the title of the series being something that's originating from "within the world" (I recall that being an SSM somewhere--that the title derives from what the people inside the story will call it when it's all said and done) it's conceivable that the majority of people aren't aware of the third faction pulling the strings behind the scenes, but instead are so focused on the Ice and Fire that they get the title of the song "in world", because they're the flashy extremes that are gaudy and attention grabbing.Presenting us with a false dichotomy, while having a third faction vying for its own interests all the while that everyone "in world" overlooks or isn't aware of, and yet is influenced by.Again, what I like is that Martin has potentially given the Earth faction motives and means and concerns of their own--traditionally the Earth faction become plot devices. That they're actually players with their own goals (theoretically) would be a departure. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheSmallOther Posted June 22, 2015 Share Posted June 22, 2015 Well, as it was discussed before, Others may appear not as a source of evil which hates all the living just because it is the nature of Others to hate all the living. Their coming is (may be) caused by the faults of men, who failed to adhere to a Pact No. 39 or whatever the number was. Of course, humanity has to fight back or punishment will be too severe. In that sense both sides are grey, not black and white. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mithras Posted June 22, 2015 Share Posted June 22, 2015 Velaryons made a pact with the Merling King. Ironborn probably made a pact with the Deep Ones. Craster apparently made a pact with the Others. Early Valyrians must have made a pact with the evil survivors of Asshai’i dragonlords. Crannogmen made a pact with the CotF and possibly squishers too. The Sistermen must have made a pact with the merlings as well. Lengi'i made a pact with the Old Ones. Making pacts with higher races of dubious motives seems like a real thing. I have been suspecting for a while that the glass candles contain the consciousness of the Asshai’i dragonlord sorcerers who foresaw their own demise and imbued the glass candles with their consciousness and will. Valyrians must have found these stones and fell under the evil influence, similar to the Palantirs of Middle Earth. Weirwood trees are functionally equivalent to glass candles. So, it can be similarly argued that weirwood trees might be keeping the consciousness and will of a race long gone physically. That explains why Leaf told Bran that the trees would teach him or why Bloodraven feels submissive to the call of the trees. Weirwood trees look quite unnatural. They live indefinitely and do not ever rot. This is not how nature is supposed to work. There is yet another Lovecraft reference for this. Check out the Great Race of Yith. Horcruxes in HP and the Frostmourne of Arthas which transformed him into the new Lich King are other examples of cursed objects designed to escape demise/death and to influence and corrupt their wielders. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MaesterSam Posted June 22, 2015 Share Posted June 22, 2015 I have a hunch, one that I cannot remotely support, but I think our proposed "Hearts" are places that have been shaped by a heavy dose of blood sacrifice. I'm using the Isle of Faces as my model for this theory, which I would speculate is the "Heart of Earth"--the place where the Song of Earth is strongest, and where the CotF gathered when they needed to work extraordinary magic; and, as suggested by the WB, also a site of grisly mass sacrifice. I agree- the "evil", desolate places around planetos could very well have been turned into such wastelands by people misusing magic, or letting it get out of control. We have a number of such places (Asshai, Yeen, Leng, the Basilisk Isles, etc), and the one thing they all have in common is older than time ruins whose origins are unknown. So these places all had humans living there at some point, and now they are completely desolated, and still have an evil feel to it. (Valyria and surroundings may fit as well, with the demon road, etc.) I had always seen the Isle of Faces as a more natural place, and a place of life and remembering- but you are right, the WB suggests some pretty terrible things may have happened there. Hopefully we'll get to see it in WoW! Does anyone have a link to the Sable Hall wager type site? I would be interested in looking at it, possibly placing a wager in relation to ASOIAF.Edit:spelling I don't know that there is one specific wager site there, but when you start a thread you can include a poll, and everyone who reads the thread has the option of voting- with results displayed (and updated) at the top of the page. It's more a way to judge how opinions sway over time than to place wagers (though JNR has been known to propose real-life wagers, but mostly to RLJ supporters). For example, here is the current RLJ thread with a poll at the start: http://sablehall.freeforums.net/thread/350/poll-6skinsWarning: this one got a little sidetracked. Some Sable Hallers have years of pent-up RLJ frustration to get off their chests, lol. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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