Heresy 180

[Black Crow]

One thing I found VERY interesting in the Ice Dragon is the idea that Adara was a "winter's child", who was supposed to go with the ice dragon to the land of always winter. IIRC, an ice dragon was seen the night she was born, and it seems as though she should have been taken that night- b/c every winter thereafter is longer and colder than the last, and her father is stressing about them coming to get her. 

 

 

Ah, well this is the stuff of true Heresy. The Ice Dragon isn't actually referenced in regards to Adara's birth, only that she was born during a very cold winter and like a number of GRRM's other significant characters killed her mother in birth. What is important is that she had winter inside her and I believe that this or something very like it is also true of Craster's sons. They are taken precisely because they have Winter inside them.

I see the fact of their brothers coming for them more often as a symptom of the approaching winter rather than a cause of it, although it remains to be seen whether the Starks also have Winter inside them - and I'm specifically thinking here of the snowflake communion. Sansa accepted it. Jon delayed accepting it until it was forced on him when he fell face down in the snow.

[LmL]

I was reading over one of my old essays where I discuss all the things related to milkglass, and I cam upon the quote about Alys Karstark as Winter's Lady. Black Crow, it reminds me of Sansa's scene as well, as well as Lyanna's crown of blue winter roses:

Jon turned to Alys Karstark. “My lady. Are you ready?” 

 

“Yes. Oh, yes.” 

 

“You’re not scared?”

 

The girl smiled in a way that reminded Jon so much of his little sister that it almost broke his heart. “Let him be scared of me.” The snowflakes were melting on her cheeks, but her hair was wrapped in a swirl of lace that Satin had found somewhere, and the snow had begun to collect there, giving her a frosty crown. Her cheeks were flushed and red, and her eyes sparkled.

 

“Winter’s lady.” Jon squeezed her hand. (ADWD, Jon)

 

Winter's lady wears a frosty crown, doesn't that sound like a shout-out to the Night's Queen? As a Karstark, Alys has whatever magical legacy the Starks have, and so if the Starks are connected to the NK and / or his offspring with the NQ (some have suggested the first Stark was a NK / NQ child who got away, like Gilly's baby), Alys could be manifesting traces of her NQ lineage here, just as Sansa and Lyanna did. 

[TheMiddleHero]

A fairly major topic of conversation in Heresy some time back was indeed whether or not the crows were more significant than they appeared and may well be players in their own right. I'd be interested in seeing you expand on your comparison with the Greeshka given GRRM's penchant for recycling ideas - and names. I had the children fingered for the Greeshka myself but I'm open to a different angle. 

I still have a good deal of digging to do on it. Will probably write something more organized on it after the holidays are through and free time is easier to come by. 

Waited till I was halfway through AFFC before I checked out some of the other works, would have been nice to start before a fresh reread of ASOIAF. Have been through Bitterblooms, A Song for Lya, And Seven Times Never Kill Man, Men of GreyWater Station, and The Hero. Think I am going to read The Dying of the Light next, then maybe Tuf Voyaging.

 

Have to admit I was inspired by some of the PJ videos, and know now where ATS got a great deal of his rants from. I find that PJ starts off with some good reasoning, but then he makes some wild leaps as things go on. Decided to dig in more myself and see what it is really all about.

 

Learning very much to never trust prophesy, not one ounce. Seems pure manipulation in all his other stories (that I have been through so far check list above,) like a bluff in a game of cards. The Others may just be a big bluff too, a distraction.

 

Finding so far the Greeshka the most curious hive minded being/s(?) so far. I keep going over in my head at times throughout the day whether it's embrace is pure happiness and pure love of billions, or if it is just a cunning predatory tactic that is nearly 100% effective.

[Black Crow]

I was reading over one of my old essays where I discuss all the things related to milkglass, and I cam upon the quote about Alys Karstark as Winter's Lady. Black Crow, it reminds me of Sansa's scene as well, as well as Lyanna's crown of blue winter roses:

Jon turned to Alys Karstark. “My lady. Are you ready?” 

 

“Yes. Oh, yes.” 

 

“You’re not scared?”

 

The girl smiled in a way that reminded Jon so much of his little sister that it almost broke his heart. “Let him be scared of me.” The snowflakes were melting on her cheeks, but her hair was wrapped in a swirl of lace that Satin had found somewhere, and the snow had begun to collect there, giving her a frosty crown. Her cheeks were flushed and red, and her eyes sparkled.

 

“Winter’s lady.” Jon squeezed her hand. (ADWD, Jon)

 

Winter's lady wears a frosty crown, doesn't that sound like a shout-out to the Night's Queen? As a Karstark, Alys has whatever magical legacy the Starks have, and so if the Starks are connected to the NK and / or his offspring with the NQ (some have suggested the first Stark was a NK / NQ child who got away, like Gilly's baby), Alys could be manifesting traces of her NQ lineage here, just as Sansa and Lyanna did. 

I'm not entirely convinced as to the "corpse queen" or as we often refer to her in these here parts, the white lady, being one of the Others. The World Book does raise the intriguing possibility of her being a daughter of the Barrow Kings, who were of course reputed necromancers. The could be consistent with the interpretation of the story really being about a Stark family falling out. That's not to say of course that its an either/or situation. Both could be involved, especially if we're looking at humans born with winter inside them who may become but are not necessarily walkers.

We could have a situation where the Stark of Winterfell goes to war not just with his brother but against all the powers of Hell above and below the Wall.

[Black Crow]

Learning very much to never trust prophesy, not one ounce. Seems pure manipulation in all his other stories (that I have been through so far check list above,) like a bluff in a game of cards. The Others may just be a big bluff too, a distraction.

 

Yes, very much in agreement with this one. I think that Craster's boys are bogeymen and what's really important is who's behind them. Come what may I really don't see this whole labyrinthine tale boiling down to stonking the icy hordes.

[MaesterSam]

The Ice Dragon was conceived and written during a very cold winter in Indiana, long before A Song of Ice and Fire was conceived and started off. GRRM has certainly taken and developed some important themes from it which provide useful pointers to his thinking but otherwise no, they are not connected in the way that the D&E stories are, so I doubt that Old Nan's story of the Ice Dragon is quite the same as Adara's

Oh I agree, there is not meant to be a connection. The timeline doesn't work; Adara lives in a time when kingdoms north and south of her are fighting, with fire dragons used by both sides. We know that never happened in Westeros. Or if it did, it was during or before the apocalypse that preceded the Dawn Age. But in that case, there wouldn't be a king's road next to her house, since that was built only after Aegon's conquest.

However, the parallels are strong, and fun to explore!

[LmL]

I'm not entirely convinced as to the "corpse queen" or as we often refer to her in these here parts, the white lady, being one of the Others. The World Book does raise the intriguing possibility of her being a daughter of the Barrow Kings, who were of course reputed necromancers. The could be consistent with the interpretation of the story really being about a Stark family falling out. That's not to say of course that its an either/or situation. Both could be involved, especially if we're looking at humans born with winter inside them who may become but are not necessarily walkers.

We could have a situation where the Stark of Winterfell goes to war not just with his brother but against all the powers of Hell above and below the Wall.

Not an Other, no. The mother of the Others. She's the opposite of Mel - cold moon pale skin instead of warm. She's taking Stannis seed and soul just the NQ took NK's seed and soul. Mel births white shadows; NQ pale shadows (Others). I see the NQ as a priestess, one who has transformed herself via ice in the way the Mel is doing with fire. NK and she sacrificed to the Others, which (probably) means they gave their babies to the cold... they were creating Others. Pale shadows. 

[MaesterSam]

Ah, well this is the stuff of true Heresy. The Ice Dragon isn't actually referenced in regards to Adara's birth, only that she was born during a very cold winter and like a number of GRRM's other significant characters killed her mother in birth. What is important is that she had winter inside her and I believe that this or something very like it is also true of Craster's sons. They are taken precisely because they have Winter inside them.

I see the fact of their brothers coming for them more often as a symptom of the approaching winter rather than a cause of it, although it remains to be seen whether the Starks also have Winter inside them - and I'm specifically thinking here of the snowflake communion. Sansa accepted it. Jon delayed accepting it until it was forced on him when he fell face down in the snow.

I'll take that as a compliment! And I agree, Craster's sons would be the ASOIAF equivalent of Adara. In fact, while Gilly's son is being born, the dying ranger is loudly complaining of feeling so, so cold, despite being under a blanket and next to the fire. In the same way, the cold got into Adara and her mother despite a burning fire. So yes, I am proposing that some babies (presumably not only Craster's) are born with winter inside them, and those ones need to be given to the Others. Maybe because of a pact, or maybe for some other reason. If they are not... well, we don't know what happens, but in the Ice Dragon it sure sounds like Adara's birth is linked to long, cold winters and the coming of the Ice Dragon:

It was a sign of a long and bitter winter when ice dragons were abroad in the land. An ice dragon had been seen flying across the face of the moon on the night Adara had been born, people said, and each winter since it had been seen again, and those winters had been very bad indeed, the spring coming later each year. So the people would set fires and pray and hope to keep the ice dragon away, and Adara would fill with fear. But it never worked. Every year the ice dragon returned. Adara knew it came for her. 

And the Ice Dragon is linked to cold. While we don't know if it can influence the length of winter, we know that winters got longer after Adara was born and it visited her every year, and then got shorter once it died. The people of Adara's town certainly seem to think the ice dragon is the cause of the long winters:

Each winter was longer and colder than the one before. Each year the thaw came later. And sometimes there were patches of land, where the ice dragon had lain to rest, that never seemed to thaw properly at all. There was much talk in the village during her sixth year, and a message was sent to the king. No answer ever came.

“A bad business, ice dragons,” Hal said that summer when he visited the farm. “They’re not like real dragons, you know. You can’t break them or train them. We have tales of those that tried, found frozen with their whip and harness in hand. I’ve heard about people that have lost hands or fingers just by touching one of them. Frostbite. Yes, a bad business.”

“Then why doesn’t the king do something?” her father demanded. “We sent a message. Unless we can kill the beast or drive it away, in a year or two we won’t have any planting season at all.”

It also has the ability to cause sudden, localized cold, as has also been described in ASOIAF. And the link is there between cold and death:

The ice dragon breathed cold. Ice formed when it breathed. Warmth fled. Fires guttered and went out, shriven by the chill. Trees froze through to their slow secret souls, and their limbs turned brittle and cracked from their own weight. Animals turned blue and whimpered and died, their eyes bulging and their skin covered over with frost. The ice dragon breathed death into the world; death and quiet and cold. But Adara was not afraid. She was a winter child, and the ice dragon was her secret.

As for the snowflake communion- another neat parallel there is that Adara is always building snow castles. Once Sansa wakes up/regains consciousness, she immediately gets to work, building one. From then on, she is more confident, stands up for herself more, and even sticks Sweetrobin's doll head on a spike. 

So maybe it's optional for Starks? Maybe such an individual (a winter's child) is needed to communicate with the Others (b/c they can survive the cold of the LOAW, and the trip there) - and that is why there must always be a Stark in Winterfell. So that, should the Others return, this Stark can eat some snow and communicate with them.

 

[Mace Cooterian]

Not an Other, no. The mother of the Others. She's the opposite of Mel - cold moon pale skin instead of warm. She's taking Stannis seed and soul just the NQ took NK's seed and soul. Mel births white shadows; NQ pale shadows (Others). I see the NQ as a priestess, one who has transformed herself via ice in the way the Mel is doing with fire. NK and she sacrificed to the Others, which (probably) means they gave their babies to the cold... they were creating Others. Pale shadows. 

LmL....I like your line of thinking.  

At first, I was compelled to wonder about Mel's shadow baby and what happened to it versus the "offspring"...for the lack of a better word.....of the NK and NQ.  In other words, why don't we see Mel's baby running around, but yet we still see the white shadows finding residence in live or dead vessels.  If this line of thinking holds true, the answer is likely to be found in the old adage..."ice preserves, fire consumes".

I think you have laid old a very plausible genealogy:

NK + NQ = Pale Shadows = Ice Magic

Pale Shadow + Live Being = White Walker

Pale Shadow + Dead Being = Wight

Not sure how the cold, the Others and Coldhands fits into this equation; but logic would suggest that the Live Being variable is why Craster and his ilk are producing babies and giving them up.

ETA:  not sure on the ramifications of the fire magic babies and their effects: i.e. Vic's arm, Moqorro's and I suppose Mel herself.

[LmL]

I've wondered a bit about the idea that the black shadows birthed by Mel seem to disappear, while the pale shadows linger long and long. I can only surmise the pale shadows have been bound - shadowbound - to something physical. A person, old bones or dead trees, whatever the Others are made out of. 

As for Coldhands I believe he is a resurrected greenseer, and that Jon may end up similar to him. Essentially, it's speculated that Jon's spirit will be stored in Ghost for a while, and begin to merge, while his body will be resurrected (by one of several means available) and his spirit put back in his body. I suspect this means sacrificing the wolf body, with the spirit that goes back into Jon's body being basically a merged Ghost / Jon. I think this is how you make a Coldhands. Coldhands is dead and smells like a wight, but he is not controlled by the Others cold magic and seems to communicate with his elk and his ravens like a greenseer would. He's acting like a greenseer - but he's dead. I think his skinchanger or greenseer status accounts for his anomalous nature, and George has already given us the mechanism thought Varamyr and Jon. 

Ive wondered about this "animal as a skinchanger's soul vessel / resurrection" idea, and whether you might be able to use a tree and a greenseer instead. Kill a greenseer, his soul goes into this tree. Now, resurrect the body, wait a bit for the greenseer soul to merge with the tree somewhat, and then KILL THE TREE, pushing the merged tree-greenseer spirit back into the corpse. Or into a new vessel - a pale shadow. This amounts to tree body snatching humans, in a sense, as the tree spirit gets to leave the tree and inhabit a corpse or pale shadow creation. Perhaps this is how Others are made, and this is why the Others are the "White Walkers of the Wood." I know the Others are connected to the trees and greenseers somehow, its just a question of how. 

[wolfmaid7]

JNR has a very cool theory linking the creation of Craster's boys to shadowbinding and that would mean a possible female such as Mel using another individual (male) to create the shadows that we knw as WWs.

[Black Crow]

I've wondered a bit about the idea that the black shadows birthed by Mel seem to disappear, while the pale shadows linger long and long. I can only surmise the pale shadows have been bound - shadowbound - to something physical. A person, old bones or dead trees, whatever the Others are made out of. 

Yes, but simpler. Fire consumes but ice preserves. Melisandre's fire babies are like smoke, quickly consumed and dispersed into the atmosphere. Craster's boys are preserved in ice - until Sam stuck one of them with the pointy end of a bit of dragonglass and in GRRM's words:

"he broke the spell holding him together." 

[Melifeather]

There is obviously something different in the way White Walkers are made, and Coldhands as well, but if Varamyr was supposed to be our example of what happens to wargs and skinchangers after their body dies, then it shouldn't be possible to force the spirit of a warg/skinchanger/greenseer out of it's second life's host. Once they're living their second life, they do become part of their chosen host, and once their own physical body is dead, they cannot move back out again. So if Jon is indeed dead and his spirit goes into Ghost, his spirit cannot leave Ghost, at least not of his own volition. 

[MaesterSam]

There is obviously something different in the way White Walkers are made, and Coldhands as well, but if Varamyr was supposed to be our example of what happens to wargs and skinchangers after their body dies, then it shouldn't be possible to force the spirit of a warg/skinchanger/greenseer out of it's second life's host. Once they're living their second life, they do become part of their chosen host, and once their own physical body is dead, they cannot move back out again. So if Jon is indeed dead and his spirit goes into Ghost, his spirit cannot leave Ghost, at least not of his own volition. 

True, Jon shouldn't be able to warg from Ghost back into his resurrected body. But, the way I see the resurrections working (and of course this could be wrong) is that the person's spirit is called back from wherever it goes after death, and forced back into the (more or less healed) body. Now, if the spirit is inhabiting a wolf, Mel may be unable to "grab" it and force it back into the dead body. So in this case, I could see her having to kill Ghost in order to free Jon's spirit so that it can return to Jon's body. 

I like LmL's idea of Ghost's spirit also ending up in Jon, since the two of them would be merged within Ghost, and I doubt Mel has the finesse to separate them from each other. So that alone could lead to Jon being quite different after his resurrection: a little less Jon, and a little more wolf. 

Lastly, while I am loving the discussion of fire and ice shadow babies, I am not sure Mel's shadow really has anything to do with fire. After all, Renly's last word was "cold" and the candles in his tent guttered out when the shadow arrived.

[shizett]

Yes, but simpler. Fire consumes but ice preserves. Melisandre's fire babies are like smoke, quickly consumed and dispersed into the atmosphere. Craster's boys are preserved in ice - until Sam stuck one of them with the pointy end of a bit of dragonglass and in GRRM's words:

"he broke the spell holding him together." 

 

I was also thinking about the quote "fire consumes but ice preserves". It is a bit strange to me that why burning a corpse would stop it from coming back as a Wight. I always interpreted it as a way of total destruction (turning the body to ash) but it cannot be the case. Human bones do preserve unless burned in high temperatures which is not attainable in all the burnings (they do burn dung in some places, so they do not have a lot of wood). Also, Wights seem to have some of their personality and memories, so ... could it be that ice preserves the bit of life force (or consciousness or whatever) that remains in them and animates them using that? and the reason that a burned corpse cannot come back afterwards is because all its life force is consumed?

It would tie very nicely with the idea of blood magic, considering the blood as a vessel for life force (or whatever).

[Melifeather]

True, Jon shouldn't be able to warg from Ghost back into his resurrected body. But, the way I see the resurrections working (and of course this could be wrong) is that the person's spirit is called back from wherever it goes after death, and forced back into the (more or less healed) body. Now, if the spirit is inhabiting a wolf, Mel may be unable to "grab" it and force it back into the dead body. So in this case, I could see her having to kill Ghost in order to free Jon's spirit so that it can return to Jon's body. 

I like LmL's idea of Ghost's spirit also ending up in Jon, since the two of them would be merged within Ghost, and I doubt Mel has the finesse to separate them from each other. So that alone could lead to Jon being quite different after his resurrection: a little less Jon, and a little more wolf. 

Lastly, while I am loving the discussion of fire and ice shadow babies, I am not sure Mel's shadow really has anything to do with fire. After all, Renly's last word was "cold" and the candles in his tent guttered out when the shadow arrived.

 

Regarding Stannis's shadow that killed Renly, yes Renly's last word was "cold" so I can see why you would think the shadow wasn't fire, but it was fire magic that created it. Like Melisandre said, you need light to cast a shadow and the brighter the light the darker the shadow.

In my opinion, for what it's worth, the White Walkers are white shadows created using ice magic. Both kinds of shadows are similar in that they are drawn from a living source, but if fire magic is used the shadow is consumed, while if ice magic is used they are preserved.

Cold burns just like fire does so both kinds of shadows would still be cold, because the fire made shadows are darkness absent of light, while the ice made shadows only reflect light (not a source of light).

[Melifeather]

I was also thinking about the quote "fire consumes but ice preserves". It is a bit strange to me that why burning a corpse would stop it from coming back as a Wight. I always interpreted it as a way of total destruction (turning the body to ash) but it cannot be the case. Human bones do preserve unless burned in high temperatures which is not attainable in all the burnings (they do burn dung in some places, so they do not have a lot of wood). Also, Wights seem to have some of their personality and memories, so ... could it be that ice preserves the bit of life force (or consciousness or whatever) that remains in them and animates them using that? and the reason that a burned corpse cannot come back afterwards is because all its life force is consumed?

It would tie very nicely with the idea of blood magic, considering the blood as a vessel for life force (or whatever).

In my opinion, the reason why the dead rise as wights in the North is because the spirit is trapped in the bones, which is where the phrase "the bones remember" comes from. The only way to release the spirit is through the cracking of the bones, like when Ghost cracked the bones open (and then it remembered it was dead), or by burning, which also cracks bones open. Once the spirit is released there is nothing left to animate the body with.

Skinchangers have the ability to slip their spirits out of their bodies and enter another host, but they remain tethered to their own body. Death of the skinchanger's body severs this tether so if they are in a host when their body dies they would be stuck in the host unable to return to their dead corpse.

In the south, I imagine that the bones of the dead would also retain the spirit, but the warmer temperatures don't cause animation, and bodies/bones deteriorate faster. And perhaps the practice of the Faith of the Seven in removing the flesh from the bones has something to do with helping this process along?

[Black Crow]

I was also thinking about the quote "fire consumes but ice preserves". It is a bit strange to me that why burning a corpse would stop it from coming back as a Wight. I always interpreted it as a way of total destruction (turning the body to ash) but it cannot be the case. Human bones do preserve unless burned in high temperatures which is not attainable in all the burnings (they do burn dung in some places, so they do not have a lot of wood). Also, Wights seem to have some of their personality and memories, so ... could it be that ice preserves the bit of life force (or consciousness or whatever) that remains in them and animates them using that? and the reason that a burned corpse cannot come back afterwards is because all its life force is consumed?

It would tie very nicely with the idea of blood magic, considering the blood as a vessel for life force (or whatever).

I'm with Feather on this one, given what we're told about bones remembering and the business of Ghost finally quieting the wight by cracking its bones, the way I'm inclined to interpret what we're given it that when someone dies the spirit remains sleeping in the bones and fades decays along with them, eventually going into the earth. Resurrection as a wight appears to involve two complementary processes, a preserving of the body from further decay and an awakening of the spirit, or rather what's left of it.

There is however a difference when it comes to skinchangers in so far as their spirit is not confined within the bones but can range fairly freely from host to host. Thus on death, as we saw with Varamyr, the spirit is not trapped within the bones but can escape to a final host, where it too will eventually fade away but rather more agreeably than in the cold ground or the darkness of a crypt.

[shizett]

In my opinion, the reason why the dead rise as wights in the North is because the spirit is trapped in the bones, which is where the phrase "the bones remember" comes from. The only way to release the spirit is through the cracking of the bones, like when Ghost cracked the bones open (and then it remembered it was dead), or by burning, which also cracks bones open. Once the spirit is released there is nothing left to animate the body with.

Skinchangers have the ability to slip their spirits out of their bodies and enter another host, but they remain tethered to their own body. Death of the skinchanger's body severs this tether so if they are in a host when their body dies they would be stuck in the host unable to return to their dead corpse.

In the south, I imagine that the bones of the dead would also retain the spirit, but the warmer temperatures don't cause animation, and bodies/bones deteriorate faster. And perhaps the practice of the Faith of the Seven in removing the flesh from the bones has something to do with helping this process along?

This is such a cool idea.

But surely, in war a lot do die of shattered bones. Unless you mean after they die, but as I said (later) to Black Crow, what about Wights getting fire and die? Their bones stay unbroken.

[shizett]

I'm with Feather on this one, given what we're told about bones remembering and the business of Ghost finally quieting the wight by cracking its bones, the way I'm inclined to interpret what we're given it that when someone dies the spirit remains sleeping in the bones and fades decays along with them, eventually going into the earth. Resurrection as a wight appears to involve two complementary processes, a preserving of the body from further decay and an awakening of the spirit, or rather what's left of it.

There is however a difference when it comes to skinchangers in so far as their spirit is not confined within the bones but can range fairly freely from host to host. Thus on death, as we saw with Varamyr, the spirit is not trapped within the bones but can escape to a final host, where it too will eventually fade away but rather more agreeably than in the cold ground or the darkness of a crypt.

I like the idea that the shattering of bones frees the spirit, but it still remains that Wights seem very flammable and the temperature that comes from a body on fire wouldn't be enough to crack the bones, but it would be enough to consume "what left of the spirit"