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Waves of Night and Moon Blood: Mythical Astronomy of Ice and Fire podcast, episode 3


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23 hours ago, Evolett said:

@ sweetsunnray - I'll have to read the stuff going on at Winterfell again - just wrote this off the top of my head. And yes, you're right about Biter. I think it was Rorge that ravaged the girl at Saltpans. 

Regarding the dolls - what you say is correct of course and not lost on me, but George often hides finer supernatural themes within a perfectly normal context. Warging and skinchanging is presented openly. We learn a lot about the mechanisms through Bran and Varamyr in particular but that doesn't mean the theme is restricted to those characters we know openly practice it. Distinctive helms are always clues to possible supernatural manifestations, echoing the Helm of Darkness which confers invisibility - and warging is essentially a spiritual practice that renders the soul invisible. We've seen ravens with 'shadows' of CotF, Orell's eagle retained a part of his soul - these examples show that parts of a soul can remain bound to an animal familiar. Mel binds the shade of the Lord of Bones to Mance to disguise him. The idea that certain individuals are bound to shadows or spirits isn't that far-fetched. The individual may not even be aware of this and I don't think any of them are. In spiritual traditions, practitioners take extra care to protect the brow (third eye) and crown chakra's from abuse by negative forces. These chakras are the portals via which souls may leave and enter the body and leaving them unprotected opens one to spiritual attack. 
 

If you consider the further hidden implication of 'remember who you are' and the idea that Azor Ahai will be reborn - what exactly should be remembered and what is being reborn here?  Why should Dany be prompted to remember who she is when she'll still in the process of discovering who she is. It's as if Quaith is telling her to renounce the identity she is building for herself in favour of something she has forgotten. Can she forget something she never knew? What are 'salt and smoke' really? Could it be that salt and smoke refer to the reborn spirits of important ancestors who played a role in the past and who must now return to complete a specific task? 

Hi Evolett,

You certainly raise interesting points to mull over and consider, when you mention how part of the soul is in the animal, and a part of the animal is in the warger/skinchanger. But it also fades over time, or becomes one... like a drop of say purple pigment in an ocean so to speak won't turn the ocean purple. 

Personally, I do not like the "possession" idea (or at least it seems that is what you allude to) for a few reasons. It sort of makes the possessor spirit the cause of evil, the responsible one... That humans are pure, and the beasts are the evil making the pure humans do stuff they otherwise wouldn't. That the magic is inherently evil. When I think of monstrous characters such as Joffrey, Gregor, Vargo Hoat, Ramsay, etc to me George is describing how it isn't magic or beast spirits making them evil, but that it is part of a fraction of human nature. Meanwhile, animals are just animals. Not even the Hound personna is inherently evil. After all, dogs are a man's best friend. It's how you use and train the dog that makes all the difference. Rorge is a monstrous guy with or without the helm, long before the helm. The Hound helm didn't make him more monstrous than he already was. It only visualized it more. Lem was never a monstrous character, but he was always a broken angry man, and that side of him has been fed over the course of the last few years in the riverlands with even more anger.

I do know what chakras are. I don't believe they truly exist (I don't even believe in the existence of a soul), but I find them inherently useful for meditations, identifying the source of feelings, reactions or other people's actions towards you (especially when they are angry). My body tends to give me sensations at the appropriate chakra region. Meditations help as training to make the helpful associations. It works for other systems just as well (totems), but it's best to stick to one, otherwise it can get confusing.

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7 hours ago, Schwarze Sonne said:

Your essay is excellent as always.

Thanks, glad you're enjoying them!

7 hours ago, Schwarze Sonne said:

Although I feel very annoyed about the connection between Bloodstone Emperor, Azor Ahai and the Last Hero. I just don't think the redemption or Darth Vader will be exactly as you stated, how can you be so sure of such fictive scenarios and keep mentioning them is beyond me.

Alright, this is a good issue to discuss. First, it seems like you may have gotten the wrong impression - I'm far from sure about the idea of a redemption arc for either Azor Ahai or his black sword. I've generally talked about this idea in terms of it being a possibility, not anything I am sure of by any means. But setting that aside, let me explain my thinking here. 

People gave always suspected that the Last Hero's dragonsteel is the same thing as Azor Ahai's Lightbringer, and I think that's a strong possibility.  A lot of things suggest this, starting with the parallel myths of AA and the LH: Azor Ahai ended the Long Night with Lightbringer, and the Last Hero ended the Long Night with his dragonsteel.  Both seem to be swords and heroes ending the Long Night.

Jon Snow is one of the two leading candidates for AA reborn, and his destiny seems to be tied to the Wall, fighting the Others, and possibly wielding a burning red sword.  Jon's dream has him committing the deeds of AA and the BSE, but he's also acting like the Last Hero, defending the Wall with a magic sword (which matches the description of lightbringer). The obvious suggestion is that the LH and AA were the same person, or perhaps a father / son combo where they both represent the same lineage, archetype, etc. 

Dany is the other person who seems to be AA reborn, and she too is expected to fight the Others with her dragons. Not only does this make sense, there are specific scenes foreshadowing this:

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The next morning she woke stiff and sore and aching, with ants crawling on her arms and legs and face. When she realized what they were, she kicked aside the stalks of dry brown grass that had served as her bed and blanket and struggled to her feet. She had bites all over her, little red bumps, itchy and inflamed. Where did all the ants come from? Dany brushed them from her arms and legs and belly. She ran a hand across her stubbly scalp where her hair had burned away, and felt more ants on her head, and one crawling down the back of her neck. She knocked them off and crushed them under her bare feet. There were so many … It turned out that their anthill was on the other side of her wall. She wondered how the ants had managed to climb over it and find her. To them these tumbledown stones must loom as huge as the Wall of Westeros. The biggest wall in all the world, her brother Viserys used to say, as proud as if he’d built it himself.

So, uh, yeah. Insects climbing over the Wall and biting Dany, only to be stomped down?  I think so. BTW hat tip to @Evolett who caught this one. :)

So that's the two main candidates for AA reborn with destinies tied to the north, the Wall, and the Others. I can only imagine this is because Azor Ahai the first had something to do with the Others and the Wall.

So I am left with these two realities: Azor Ahai clearly caused the Long Night by forging Lightbringer, and Lightbringer seems to be a black sword associated with darkness. And yet, ultimately something like Lightbringer was used at the Wall to defeat the Others, and AA seems to be tied to the Last Hero. So how do reconcile these things? How does the vil sword and evil guy become the Last Hero with dragonsteel? I'm not sure exactly, and I'm open to suggestions. Was his sword broken and reforged? There's a lot of hints about broken swords, and the Last Hero has a broken sword at one point. How does Dawn, with all of it's Lightbringer associations, fit in? It's a white sword, so it can't be AA's black sword, right? I'm not really sure how all this works out, which is why I've talked about these things in terms of possibilities. There's a big secret here which I haven't cracked, so I'm all ears to any ideas you have. 

Some ideas I have are that the Last Hero was essentially a kind of sacrifice, and Azor Ahai may have had to do it as penance for his evil. Perhaps the son of AA sought to atone for his father's evil, using his father's sword. Or perhaps Dawn is tied to the swords of pale flame of the gemstone emperors which came before Azor Ahai, and somehow one of these pre-Azor Ahai swords survived and was used against the Others. Or perhaps Dawn is the original Ice and came from the north, defeated Azor Ahai, and then someone used AA's black sword to fight the Others. Use the ice sword (Dawn) to defeat the fire sorcerer (AA), and use the fire sword (LB) to defeat the ice demons... something like that.  Or perhaps AA conquered Dawn Age Westeros, only to have the Others invade, and he just had no choice but to fight them and was remembered as a hero here. There is a kind of match between LB as a sun-drinking sword and the idea of drinking the blue star light out of the Others, killing them. 

So what are your thoughts on all of this? What is the nature of the connection between the LH's dragonsteel and Lightbringer, in your mind, and how does Dawn fit in? 

7 hours ago, Schwarze Sonne said:

I am in love with almost everything else though.

I doubt there used to be two (physical) moons. The other moon might be metaphorical. I highly doubt bacteria will survive if the moon debris truly fell down. But the most important thing is that if that happened again, there'd be no moon left. I just want the red comet to come back and fall down to cause the cataclysm and leads the world to Armageddon. What if that didn't happen and we somehow ended up with Jon, Dany and Tyrion riding dragons (through freezing cold and blizzard) to fight the Others instead? That would be a letdown.

Ok, so there are some scientific issues with the whole moon thing, no doubt. In part, I would say "it's fantasy, not sic-fi" and so the hard rules don't apply, although I don't think Martin is doing something completely irrational either (meaning the Others didn't just "turn the sun dark" or something). Something actually happened to obscure the sun, and martin is showing us what - all the instances of greasy smoke blotting out the stars, moon, or sun. The meteors were definitely not metaphorical - they were the mechanism which created the smoke that blotted out the sun. That's why we have all the stories about things hammering the waters, dragons which drown islands, deadly tsunamis that come when someone steals from the gods (Durran Godsgrief). As for the second moon, I'm slightly open to the idea that we only ever had one moon, and that it was merely impacted and transformed and not destroyed. But there are a lot of metaphorical scenes which depict two moons, so I don't think this is the case. I would suggest we follow the text above our own rationalizations - the text says two moons, literally, as well as metaphorically. We see the sun kings with two wives, over and over, and each time one is ice associated and one fire associated. I haven't gone into this too much in the essays / podcasts yet, but I will, and the pattern occurs a lot. 

As for striking the remaining moon, I don't think it would be destroyed, because with no moon the earth would tilt over and everyone would die. Martin used to write SF - not hard SF, more like classic SF - but is familiar with basic astronomy and celestial shit and whatnot. And specifically, the metaphors which I am seeing that refer to the impending collision with the remaining moon all show that the moon is not destroyed, but stripped. A skull boiled of its flesh is used a couple of times, as an example. A couple of times the boiled skull is gilded afterward, indicating glory. I think that what we will be left with is a bare rocky moon instead of an ice moon. Real ice moons like Europe are mostly rock, surrounded by an ocean of cold water or liquid methane and crusted over with an ice-rock crust. I'm thinking George wants to strip the ice and water off, leaving only rock. I expect this to be a "no more magic" outcome, because I tend to think the old moon was the fire moon, controlling fire magic, and the surviving one ice magic. When the fire moon was destroyed and transformed into oily black bloodstone, fire magic was also changed into the shadow magic we find at Asshai and in Mel's shadow babies. The only remnants of the fire moon are the oily black stones (which I don't think we have seen all of, btw). I think some ice moon meteors might balance things out somehow, and stripping the ice moon of its ice and magic might work to balance as well. But we will have a moon left, that's the point. 

I am expecting the red comet to return and hit the ice moon, with the ice moon meteors landing in the north and destroying the Wall somehow. I don't have a firm opinion on the specifics - as you say, you can't be sure about hypotheticals - but I have seen a bunch of foreshadowings of the moon givings us meteors again in snowy fashion. I will be posting all of these foreshadowings in an essay so everyone can look at them and decide for themselves. I usually don't make many predictions, but i do think this one will happen. 

I do think we will get dragon riders in the snow, fwiw, but not just that. In order for the real Long Night to return, we need more than a brutal winter. We need to turn day into night, so the Others can really come out and invade full scale. If a moon meteor caused this to happen last time... it's kinda reasonable to suspect a moon meteor may cause the next one. There are only so many things that can cause a nuclear winter type scenario.  

 

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Nice that you're into meditation - we have something in common there. I've been practicing yoga and meditation for ten years. Perhaps chakras do exist, I don't know but they are part and parcel of Far Eastern religion and philosophy and the third eye and all that's ascribed to it can be applied to the story. I do think George makes use of it in this context. Yes, Rorge was a 'beast in human skin' way before he acquired the helm and that makes it all the more intriguing, given what the helm represents. It's almost as if we're supposed to recognize it as a marker. I don't like the idea of possession either but the whole principle of possession is to make a person evil, to spur him on to monstrous deeds. The helm's journey through various characters thus appears more than simple visualization to me. I certainly wouldn't have needed it to convince me of Rorge's propensity for violence. The author did a pretty good job conveying that without the helm. So, I take your points - that's just how I evaluated it for a long time. After my study of warging and skinchanging, reading up on lore on the subject, I think otherwise. On the issue of the soul dissipating like a drop of water - I wouldn't agree. Varamyr knows his human soul will eventually merge with that of his wolf during his second life. It doesn't dissolve, it merges and that's the difference. It merges with the wolf soul and takes on its characteristics - essentially, it becomes a 'beast soul'. That doesn't mean the wolf is evil. A wolf is a wolf and will behave with a wolfs instincts, that's all. Bran's arc shows all too well what this means. He follows Summer's wolf-instincts, he behaves like a wolf. He enjoys the freedom it gives him, the use of the wolfs legs in the absence of his own. It's also a sense of power. The wolf is a predator, not because it's evil but because that is its role in nature. Arya also revels in the power her wolf gives her.

 

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She opened her eyes and stared up blind at the black that shrouded her, her dream already fading. So beautiful. She licked her lips, remembering. The bleating of the sheep, the terror in the shepherd’s eyes, the sound the dogs had made as she killed them one by one, the snarling of her pack. Game had become scarcer since the snows began to fall, but last night they had feasted. Lamb and dog and mutton and the flesh of man. Some of her little grey cousins were afraid of men, even dead men, but not her. Meat was meat, and men were prey. She was the night wolf. 

I cringed when I first read this. She's not in the least bit disturbed by this dream. She identifies so strongly with the 'night-wolf' that even eating human flesh is justifed in her eyes. For Arya, this is no nightmare, its something she thinks fondly of even after the dream.  Fine, she's only living out her wolf-nature we say. It's only a dream. She's in the wolf, doing what a wolf does. But what happens when a wolf's spirit meets and merges with a human consciousness as in possession for example? What if the soul's natural wolf-instincts override human consciousness and reason because the human isn't even aware of it? Jojen stressed the importance of maintaing control, of not giving the wolf-nature the chance to override the human soul. And I mean human in every sense of the word, with all the attached virtues and vices. I think we might very well end up with a 'beast in human skin'. Ramsay is a good example of this beast nature. There's nothing he enjoys more than a good hunt.  No, wolves and dogs don't torture or skin their prey, but a man with that additional property of intelligence might just express the wolf-nature in this way. I'm fairly certain of what's lurking behind those pale eyes. All those  'less than human' comments indicate just that.  

I hope this explanation is clearer than the last. I may be wrong, but somehow I don't think so. 

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4 hours ago, Evolett said:

 

I'm not very good with celestial imagery unless it's very obvious and I'm not sure what you'e looking for exactly.

The simple part of it is that Stranger the black horse washes up and becomes driftwood. That parallels the idea of the black sea dragon moon meteors being brought from the sea and thought of as burning brands, as well as the dual association of Nagga's bones and teeth and fangs as either weirwood or moon meteor oily black stone. 

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But in plain-speak, I feel that Aeron's Prophet chapter clearly identifies Euron as a fully fledged Bloodstone Emperor. You've probably earmarked this passage already but I'll point it out because it's so significant:

I have definitely marked him as such but haven't focused on him yet and I hadn't noticed the below passage. Thanks!

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Like Arianne's plot to install Myrcella as queen, this is a reference to what went down during the Dawn. It's even more to the point. Balon chose Asha as his heir, he chose her over Theon and he certainly wouldn't have wanted his brother Euron on the Seastone Chair. Asha is the Amethyst Princess here (she's also my Pirate Queen - still writing that up). Very few support her, and interestingly, the only thing Euron and the Damphair have in common is their rejection of Asha status as heir to the throne. Balon decreed it but Aeron goes against his wishes and calls a kingsmoot. I think he would have done even if Euron hadn't snatched the Chair. I suspect he was in a real twist because neither of them suited him. As the 'gods' would have it, Euron is chosen. This really shouldn't surprise us - the Drowned God is not a benevolent god. 

The Damphair has vanished, presumably in hiding and contemplating his next move. I think all will depend on whom he decides to support in the long run. His views regarding women in power are very strong - he might end up supporting Euron after all. This is important because Aeron is a priest of the sea, a prophet. We can't be certain of his powers (I'll come to that again in a sec). However combined with Euron, who like the BSE appears to have acquired some secret knowledge and is obviously dabbling in dark magic (including preparing himself in a way similar to Bran), these two might be a formidable force. 

Why do I think there'll be a battle between unJon and Euron?
Because Jon represents AA in his messianic form, and will have to battle Euron, the BSE come again. Many think Euron is geared towards riding a dragon but I disagree totally with this assessment. Euron's arc suggests he's learned the art of gaining control of Others in Asshai and I think this is exactly what he plans to do - conquer Westeros with an army of the undead. And that places him directly at odds with Jon, whose main goal is to prevent the Others from overrunning Westeros. Daenerys is to be his Night's Queen (the NQ is essential to controlling Others, methinks - hark back to Sansa and the snow-knights). 

Whoa - Eyron controlling the Others? Where'd you see clues about that? I have sen parallels between Drowned Men and the Others, who are frozen water of course, but Euron controlling them? I guess with one blue eye, it makes ensue symbolically. But what about hard evidence? Learning about the Others in Asshai? That's far out. 

There's no question Euron sees Dany as his Amethyst Empress - he mentions her as having eyes of Amethyst right after talking about seeing golden gods with gemstone eyes in the far east. He's definitely hip to some starry wisdom and the BSE ideas. And I do think there's a connection between AA and the Others, via the possibility that A = the NK. But that's something I only have ideas and notes about, not a fleshed out theory. 

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Some of the evidence for this - consider my water study, which shows the potential of water in raising the dead, the water ritual performed by the Damphair - this is where driftwood comes in. On the more magical side of things, driftwood is charged with power due to its transformation by the sea. Having no roots to bind it, it is thought of as free to travel far and wide, gathering more magical energy as it journeys. Hence, next to Willow staffs, driftwood is a popular material for magic wands (wands are used to direct energy). Because of its life in water, driftwood is thought to become thirsty and requires finishing in the form of wax or oils. Dry driftwood is often used in mystic bonfires. Also interesting – a driftwood fire burns in vivid blues and greens due to the accumulation of salt within the wood.

Under the sea, the flames burn blue and green and black, so I've heard. The black fire is easy to place, and the green was associated with wildfire, but driftwood being associated with green and blue flame is way interesting. If burning driftwood brands create blue and green flame - the colors of Shiera Seastar's eyes, btw - and driftwood can also be symbolic of the black moon meteors, which should burn with black fire... we have out trio of green black and blue flame, and coming from the sea as well. Remember it is the Drowned God who carried a burning brand fro the sea. Driftwood cudgels, driftwood burning brands, the fire of the sea dragon, black iron soul drinking weapons- theres are all describing the same thing. Fire that comes from the sea by way of the moon meteors. Shiera sea-star - a star that falls in the sea, the sea dragon. It's a nice fit. 

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Finally, driftwood combines the power of earth and sea. As a wand it also incorporates the power of fire. The Damphair carries a driftwood staff invested with the power of earth, sea and fire. We may not have seen it perform any miracles yet but consider Thoros, whose first raising of Beric was an accident. The key was the magic of fire, brought by the comet, or by dragons, whatever. You've seen all the burning weirwood imagery, the Grey King stealing fire from heaven etc. Why did he do this? It could only have been for the intrinsic magic of fire. We know burning wood may release its secrets and facilitate prophecy. What else could burning wood achieve, especially in combination with the water element? 

Well, the Hammer of the Waters triggers floods, Durran's theft of a (moon) goddess brought floods, and the sea dragon brings island drowning. Lightbringer is all about the waves of night and blood.. Euron sails on a sea of blood (almost used that in this last podcast but I'm saving it for the God's Eye episode). Then there's this, after the Battle of the Blackwater with all it's symbolism:

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Davos waited. Gone, all gone, he thought dully, remembering how fat Hal’s white belly always showed beneath his grease-stained doublet, the long scar the fish hook had left across Will’s face, the way Jate always doffed his cap at the women, be they five or fifty, highborn or low. Drowned or burned, with my sons and a thousand others, gone to make a king in hell.

Drowning and burning makes a hellish king. Notice the lightbringer forging clues - a fat white belly (preggers moon), a fish hook (sea dragon hook) scarring a face, and someone who take soft his hat (crown, head, etc) to woo women. The sun lost his fiery crown through loving the moon maiden. Then, a thousand sons make a king in hell. Here's what that king looks like:

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They plunged through Stannis like a lance through a pumpkin, every man of them howling like some demon in steel. And do you know who led the vanguard? Do you? Do you? Do you? ”

“Robb?” It was too much to be hoped, but …

“It was Lord Renly! Lord Renly in his green armor, with the fires shimmering off his golden antlers! Lord Renly with his tall spear in his hand! They say he killed Ser Guyard Morrigen himself in single combat, and a dozen other great knights as well. It was Renly, it was Renly, it was Renly! Oh! the banners, darling Sansa! Oh! to be a knight!” - ACOK, SANSA

There's a lot going on here, but what we see is a fiery horned lord, the king of hell. He was more like Garth when he was alive, now he's something a bit different. Stannis and Renly are interesting - Stannis shows us a cold Azor Ahai, turning into the Night's King, while Renly shows us Garth / a green horned lord turning into a fiery greenseer. Ser Guyard is interesting too - his sigil is a black crow on a green field. I don't want to go too far off topic... but there's your King of Hell. And he was drowned - he drowned on his own blood when Azor Ahai as layer by Stannis Baratheon kills him with a cold shadowsword and turns out the lights in his magical castle. 

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The Damphair's damp hair is also a clue to this - in fact it's a clue to his considerable power. I noticed the short discussion on hair above but didn't want to comment - I know you guys think my interpretations are sometimes too esoteric but that just happens to be my main interest - the magic behind the scenes. 

Hey, that's why we are friends!

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Finally - there's this quote to back up my claims:

Rusted hinges appear to be places of old magic - we know of one in Westeros - the Wall. Euron has come again. 

The Wall is a hinge, and I often wonder if there's isn't some black stone beneath it. Black stone that ran red with blood, no doubt, black and red liked rusted iron. The Wall is built of blood, as Ygitte says. I think there is a whole thing here about black stone under the ice. The Wall and or the Ice mOon might have a black meteor inside it, animating the ice with cold fire. It's very like the NK putting his fiery dragon seed into the cold womb of the NQ to birth WW, cold white shadows with a cold internal fire. The act of putting the fiery seed in the cold moon queen freezes it, making it cold fire. Ergo, the Others have blue star eyes which burn like nothing else. The Others are not ice magic, but frozen or chilled fire magic, perhaps. It's very like the fiery moon meteors plunging into cold black water and coming out chilled, but with internal fire, much like Aeron:

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And gaunt and pale and shivering, Aeron Damphair struggled back to the shore, a wiser man than he had been when he stepped into the sea.  For he had found the answer in his bones, and the way was plain before him.  The night was so cold that his body seemed to steam as he stalked back toward his shelter, but there was a fire burning in his heart, and sleep came easily for once, unbroken by the scream of iron hinges. (AFFC, The Prophet)

So he comes out cold, but with internal fire. Dany does the same in the Womb f the World, coming out cold but of course she has the fire inside her. And here, the hinges, perhaps an allusion to the Wall as being cold and pale but with an internal fire. :)  I hadn't made the hinges connection before, so hey, look! Teamwork. :)

 

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PS - It may be useful to separate your AA-Types as Schwarze Sonne suggests. Like Jon, Sandor and Beric both lean towards the messianic archetype - we can see the transformation from dark to 'saviour', beginning with Sandor. Bloodstone Emperor types probably won't have a special sword because they represent the actual man who brings ruin.

My choice of candidates here include Ramsay (note the link to the Hound/ fArya, the Pink Letter etc) and of course Euron.
We need another to contrast Beric - I think Mance Rayder is the one you want here. The King-beyond-the-Wall. That works.

Last Hero: Varys, Littlefinger, mm - I'm thinking Tyrion. 

 

Cool, thanks for your thoughts in this direction. I'm getting there... I just have so much already lined up to work on. But I will get around to splitting apart the various elements, so I appreciate you thinking about it now. This all makes sense so farm but I 'm not sure about who does or doesn't need an actual sword. Stannis has a sword, and he belongs in the BSE group, right? False messiah? 

Mance is a part of it too, showing us a horned lord king north of the wall. He mixes black and red dragon symbolism, giving rise to the awful mance Rhaegar theories, but his tent is a white snow bear (solar symbol) with the great elk antlers (horned lord symbol). He's another fiery horned lord leading an army of Others stand-ins, like the black dragon kings with their white shadow Kingsguard, Stannis leading an army of tree warriors at Deepwood Motte, or Mors "dragonglass eye" Umber leading an army of tree people at Winterfell. These all indicate the NK as a fiery horned god - AA, or one of his family - creating cold tree warriors from the north. 

Here's a col quote about horned gods smashing leviathans with hammers, and destroying islands (or island towns) in the process:

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When last he’d seen Lordsport (King's Landing, same idea), it had been a smoking wasteland, the skeletons of burnt longships and smashed galleys littering the stony shore like the bones of dead leviathans, the houses no more than broken walls and cold ashes. After ten years, few traces of the war remained. The smallfolk had built new hovels with the stones of the old, and cut fresh sod for their roofs. A new inn had risen beside the landing, twice the size of the old one, with a lower story of cut stone and two upper stories of timber. The sept beyond had never been rebuilt, though; only a seven- sided foundation remained where it had stood. Robert Baratheon’s fury had soured the ironmen’s taste for the new gods, it would seem.

Theon was more interested in ships than gods.  (ACOK, Theon)

 

Thing is, ships are sea dragon symbols, as is hammered home (pardon the pun) when Dany names her three ships for Aegon's dragons... which were named for gods of valyria. The ships are burnt and smashed by Robert's furious hammer, just as the Grey King (a corrupted greenseer, aka the horned gods) slew the Sea Dragon. Sea dragons are leviathans, and the burnt and smashed ships are leviathans. That same fire fro heaven which was the island rowing sea dragon was also the lightning bolt which set fire to the demon tree. So again, fire from heaven (moon meteors) creating burning trees, which are fiery greenseers, fiery horned lords. 

When Mel's burns the statues of the seven on dragonstone - burning gods - there's another parallel. Those wooden gods were made from the masts of the Targaryen ships - sea dragons. So again, sea dragons = burning gods and burning wood. And just as horned lord Stannis smashed the leviathans at Lordsport, Stannis the fiery stag burns the seven on dragonstone. And this is where Lightbringer comes from, take note. At the Iron Islands with Robert, rushing in through the first breach in the dark stone crescent wall of Pyke was... Thoros with his flaming sword. And on and on. 

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@Evolett and @sweetsunray, just wanted to say I've enjoyed both your thoughts on the beast in human skin / skinchanger stuff. I agree with points on both sides, and it's very interesting food for thought which I will marinate on. Evolett, I am finding your last comment on this topic easier to understand / agree with than the first, whether it's phrasing or whatever. I see where you're coming from. 

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1 hour ago, sweetsunray said:

I do know what chakras are. I don't believe they truly exist (I don't even believe in the existence of a soul), but I find them inherently useful for meditations, identifying the source of feelings, reactions or other people's actions towards you (especially when they are angry). My body tends to give me sensations at the appropriate chakra region. Meditations help as training to make the helpful associations. It works for other systems just as well (totems), but it's best to stick to one, otherwise it can get confusing.

 

23 minutes ago, Evolett said:

Nice that you're into meditation - we have something in common there. I've been practicing yoga and meditation for ten years. Perhaps chakras do exist, I don't know but they are part and parcel of Far Eastern religion and philosophy and the third eye and all that's ascribed to it can be applied to the story. I do think George makes use of it in this context.

Ok, so this is an interesting but related side track which I have thoughts on. @sweetsunray, you use chakras for meditation but don't believe they exist, lol. That's exactly the deal with all religion and esoteric thought. The concept of chakras is just a focus tool for out minds to use in order to coax various parts of our "spirit" or whatever you want to call it to do certain things. Same for typical religion - the idea of God guides behavior on a certain )hopefully desirable) direction. It doesn't matter, really, whether god or chakras or Santa Claus "really exists," because the behavior generated by the act of belief does exist. So, no, chakras "don't exist," but they work... so in another sense, they do exist.  Our minds are incredibly powerful, but they can be controlled in amazing ways with belief. If you're an evolved person, you can go to the next level, where you don't either believe or disbelieve esoteric ideas, but instead use them as tools. Joseph Campbell understood this really well:

Quote

God is a metaphor for a mystery that absolutely transcends all human categories of thought, even the categories of being and non-being.  Those are categories of thought.  I mean it’s as simple as that. So it depends on how much you want to think about it.  Whether it’s doing you any good. Whether it is putting you in touch with the mystery that’s the ground of your own being.  If it isn’t, well, it’s a lie.  So half the people in the world are religious people who think that their metaphors are facts.  Those are what we call theists.  The other half are people who know that the metaphors are not facts. And so, they’re lies. Those are the atheists.

They are both wrong. Esoteric thought - which means all religion and spirituality - is not meant to be regarded as "true" or "not true," and doing either defeats the purpose to some extent. Religious fundamentalists get this wrong by thinking that their religion is literally true, leading to absurd conclusions which fly in the face of science and fact. Atheist rob themselves of valuable thought tools which can serve to help a human transcend the lower levels of conscious, and this is the real purpose of existence, no small thing to be overlooked. Religious text is full of amazing insight, which you can miss out on by taking the anti-theistic route. 

So, use your charkas, but don't believe win them - that's more or less the right idea. Whatever works, whatever is "putting you in touch with the mystery that’s the ground of your own being." 

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3 minutes ago, LmL said:

 

They are both wrong. Esoteric thought - which means all religion and spirituality - is not meant to be regarded as "true" or "not true," and doing either defeats the purpose to some extent. Religious fundamentalists get this wrong by thinking that their religion is literally true, leading to absurd conclusions which fly in the face of science and fact. Atheist rob themselves of valuable thought tools which can serve to help a human transcend the lower levels of conscious, and this is the real purpose of existence, no small thing to be overlooked. Religious text is full of amazing insight, which you can miss out on by taking the anti-theistic route. 

So, use your charkas, but don't believe win them - that's more or less the right idea. Whatever works, whatever is "putting you in touch with the mystery that’s the ground of your own being." 

Very well said :thumbsup:

 

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12 minutes ago, Evolett said:

Very well said :thumbsup:

 

I've long held this general philosophy, but reading Campbell in the process of analyzing ASOIAF reallyhelped crystallize this idea and make it clear enough to me to be able to regurgitate it with some level of effectiveness. :)  I was raised in an oppressive religious environment, then grew older and rebelled, and hated religion for a time. It was tremendously healing for me to come back to a middle ground where I can understand what religion and spiritually does to and for people. I think there are a lot of people, in the US especially, who have been either burned by religion, or see it as dead and empty, and are therefore kind of anti-religion to some extent. And the religious people we see these days tend to be monotheistic authoritarians, which doesn't help, because the world is evolving out of that style of social organization. Tats why so many westerners find something compelling in eastern religion and various forms of mysticism, because it is more abstract, and more about practice than theology. It better reflects an understanding of the nature of esoteric thought and esoteric communication. 

In case you are interested, I've written more about this topic on the "Methodology" page of my wordpress page ( a post which appeared on the forum as "George R. R. Martin is writing modern mythology"), and I also touch on it a bit in my shorter "Lucifer Means Lightbringer" essay.

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27 minutes ago, LmL said:

 

Ok, so this is an interesting but related side track which I have thoughts on. @sweetsunray, you use chakras for meditation but don't believe they exist, lol. That's exactly the deal with all religion and esoteric thought. The concept of chakras is just a focus tool for out minds to use in order to coax various parts of our "spirit" or whatever you want to call it to do certain things. Same for typical religion - the idea of God guides behavior on a certain )hopefully desirable) direction. It doesn't matter, really, whether god or chakras or Santa Claus "really exists," because the behavior generated by the act of belief does exist. So, no, chakras "don't exist," but they work... so in another sense, they do exist.  Our minds are incredibly powerful, but they can be controlled in amazing ways with belief. If you're an evolved person, you can go to the next level, where you don't either believe or disbelieve esoteric ideas, but instead use them as tools. Joseph Campbell understood this really well:

They are both wrong. Esoteric thought - which means all religion and spirituality - is not meant to be regarded as "true" or "not true," and doing either defeats the purpose to some extent. Religious fundamentalists get this wrong by thinking that their religion is literally true, leading to absurd conclusions which fly in the face of science and fact. Atheist rob themselves of valuable thought tools which can serve to help a human transcend the lower levels of conscious, and this is the real purpose of existence, no small thing to be overlooked. Religious text is full of amazing insight, which you can miss out on by taking the anti-theistic route. 

So, use your charkas, but don't believe win them - that's more or less the right idea. Whatever works, whatever is "putting you in touch with the mystery that’s the ground of your own being." 

Actually, I am an atheist, and obviously I don't rob myself of "spiritual tools". I'm what you can regard a spiritual atheist. I don't need to believe in its existence, nor does it even need to exist to work. I use Crowley Tarot cards too to ponder issues. Serendipity and symbolism works. I've been translating for dreams for 14 years too. Symbolism is the language to understand emotions and life progress. Our mind is wired to to use symbolism for that (example dreams) and to apply meaning to coincidence. I study for an extra master degree in physics, and a lot of what happens especially at quantum levels goes beyond what our mind is made for to grasp - the everyday sized 3d world. That's the physical level required for us to survive. But studying it sure sometimes feels exactly the same in my brain as deep meditation experiences. And describing it is like retelling a meditation journey... lol. Both my parents are atheists too. They don't meditate and have no such interest in symbolism. But they are people functioning on higher-self level with understanding too, even though it's not spiritual. And that works fine too. 

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4 minutes ago, sweetsunray said:

Actually, I am an atheist, and obviously I don't rob myself of "spiritual tools". I'm what you can regard a spiritual atheist. I don't need to believe in its existence, nor does it even need to exist to work. I use Crowley Tarot cards too to ponder issues. Serendipity and symbolism works. I've been translating for dreams for 14 years too. Symbolism is the language to understand emotions and life progress. Our mind is wired to to use symbolism for that (example dreams) and to apply meaning to coincidence. I study for an extra master degree in physics, and a lot of what happens especially at quantum levels goes beyond what our mind is made for to grasp - the everyday sized 3d world. That's the physical level required for us to survive. But studying it sure sometimes feels exactly the same in my brain as deep meditation experiences. And describing it is like retelling a meditation journey... lol.

Yes, that's what I'm talking about - that's why I switched to using "anti-theist," meaning "anti-religion" and anti"spirituality." Not believing in the existence of god is fine, that's what I was talking about with using chakras but not "believing in them." Spiritual atheist, I understand what you're saying - it's a bit of a semantic tangle when we talk about these things. But you're doing exactly what I (and I believe Joseph Campbell) is talking about as the proper way to make use of esoteric ideas... more as a matter of practice than literal belief. 

And yeah, quantum physics will definitely shake your belief in a concrete world of absolutes. 

Anyway, what i am saying is that god is just a mental device, and you can use a lot of tother things for the same purpose. A mental advice is an abstract thing, like the number one. It neither exists nor "not-exists." It's an abstraction, but abstractions have tremendous power to motivate human behavior and focus the human spirit, as with the chakra meditations.  

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You know, @LmL, your mention of the leviathan brings me back to the same old story: distinguishing between the leviathan and the sea-dragon. In the Grey King legend, the Seadragon is stronger than both (another reason besides the whale allusions and why I think you should differentiate). I keep asking myself what the leviathan really represents - I feel quite certain it relates to the Others. Reasons for this include the Manderly association with the Starks. Then I thought back to my theory on different factions of Others - remember we talked about that - but I'm not that certain anymore. What I propose is the following - 

The planet has experienced three threats, which we can define as - the kraken, the leviathan and the seadragon. The World Books mentions the mysterious 'invaders from the sea' that wiped out the mazemakers amongst others. Let's say the kraken represents 'invaders from the sea' (pre-LN). The leviathan represents the second threat, the Others (LN). And the sea-dragon is what it is - it's the third threat - dragons as we know them, the dragons of Old Valyria (post-LN). The reason I suggest this set up lies in the nature of symbolism I encounter - dragons are easily recognized but the other two are more difficult, and easy to confuse. That's why I initially thought there might be two factions of Others. But that's not the case. The Ironborn seem to unite all three. My next problem is associating the 3 symbols with current or past civilizations. My choice for the Others would be the Dothraki - their mode of operation mirrors the Others. Annahilation, indiscriminate killing, slavery. They don't trade (I doubt the Others ever did), but they accept gifts, like the Others do. Seems like a good match. The dragons are more or less clear. 

The Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes is possibly a clue to the origin of the Others. I'll just quote from the Wiki here;

 

Quote

Leviathan argues for a social contract and rule by an absolute sovereign. Hobbes wrote that civil war and the brute situation of a state of nature ("the war of all against all") could only be avoided by strong undivided government. (source)

Comparable with the Great Empire, I would say. 

Invaders from the sea? Ancestors of the Ironborn? The mysterious monstrous giants - outsized men who appeared to terrorize Westeros at some point? I'm stuck on that one. Really need to sort out the symbolism. 

Sorry for going off on a tangent - just needed to get this out. I have the feeling enlightenment is around the corner, maybe I should rub my crown-chakra a little bit :-) 

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21 minutes ago, Evolett said:

You know, @LmL, your mention of the leviathan brings me back to the same old story: distinguishing between the leviathan and the sea-dragon. In the Grey King legend, the Seadragon is stronger than both (another reason besides the whale allusions and why I think you should differentiate). I keep asking myself what the leviathan really represents - I feel quite certain it relates to the Others. Reasons for this include the Manderly association with the Starks. Then I thought back to my theory on different factions of Others - remember we talked about that - but I'm not that certain anymore. What I propose is the following - 

The planet has experienced three threats, which we can define as - the kraken, the leviathan and the seadragon. The World Books mentions the mysterious 'invaders from the sea' that wiped out the mazemakers amongst others. Let's say the kraken represents 'invaders from the sea' (pre-LN). The leviathan represents the second threat, the Others (LN). And the sea-dragon is what it is - it's the third threat - dragons as we know them, the dragons of Old Valyria (post-LN). The reason I suggest this set up lies in the nature of symbolism I encounter - dragons are easily recognized but the other two are more difficult, and easy to confuse. That's why I initially thought there might be two factions of Others. But that's not the case. The Ironborn seem to unite all three. My next problem is associating the 3 symbols with current or past civilizations. My choice for the Others would be the Dothraki - their mode of operation mirrors the Others. Annahilation, indiscriminate killing, slavery. They don't trade (I doubt the Others ever did), but they accept gifts, like the Others do. Seems like a good match. The dragons are more or less clear. 

The Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes is possibly a clue to the origin of the Others. I'll just quote from the Wiki here;

 

Comparable with the Great Empire, I would say. 

Invaders from the sea? Ancestors of the Ironborn? The mysterious monstrous giants - outsized men who appeared to terrorize Westeros at some point? I'm stuck on that one. Really need to sort out the symbolism. 

Sorry for going off on a tangent - just needed to get this out. I have the feeling enlightenment is around the corner, maybe I should rub my crown-chakra a little bit :-) 

Well, remember that theOthers are basically icy versions of the meteors symbols. Instead of black and red, dar stars burning red, they are white and blue, blue stars burning bright and cold. Many gave also noticed the WW parallel the NW brothers, but inverted. Both watchers, shadows, etc. So the Others are wrapped up in all of this. The part of the Ironborn myth that relates to them is the Lightning bolt. The Others move like lightning, strike like lightning, and the sword they broke in the prologue is twisted like a tree struck by lightning, which is the Grey King myth exactly. So, the Others seem to stem from this moon disaster also, but I would say they are associated with the ice moon. If AA is the NK, then it's all in parallel. Basically, I think the ice moon took s black moon meter as shrapnel, and sustained some damage at that time. This would be the fire inside the ice, as I was talking about. The Others also seem tied to dead trees, and lighting certainly makes dead trees. 

I'm still working it all out but the point is, the Others are mixed up in that stuff also.

I'm not going to go around with the sea dragon leviathan thing again. It's really simple. The classic leviathan is by definition a sea dragon, and a multi-headed one at that. The word leviathan can also be used to describe any large swimming thing, from whales to large ships, or even just anything that is large, like when Sam is called a leviathan. Don't et the multiple uses of the word confuse you though - the sea dragon drowns islands. That's a moon meteor. A sea dragon like the classic leviathan is a perfect symbol, since he symbolizes flying meteors as flying dragons. A meter landing in the sea is a sea dragon, using his logic. That's doesn't preclude other leviathan based ideas, like the Hobbes stuff which I am somewhat familiar with, or other uses of leviathan. And just because the Sea Dragon feasted on leviathans doesn't mean he's not a leviathan himself. It just makes him a cannibal, like the Bloodstone Emperor, or the black dragon "the Cannibal." *wink wink*

I think Sam coming out of the well at the Nightfort makes it clear. The trees try to ill the moon down into the well, which has been established as a bottomless thing with monsters in the depths; Hodor throws a rock down to mime the sea dragon meteor, upon which time Bran thinks about awakening monsters. Then Sam "the leviathan" emerges, and Bran thinks it's the thing Hodor woke. Sam also has a moon face four times. The reason is because the moon became the leviathan, the sea dragon. It was pulled down into the depths by a greenseer, and it rose from the depths as the leviathan, just as Sam does.

I'm not sure I am seeing a parallel between the others and any of the various manifestations of leviathan, be it whale or sea dragon or fat NW brother with a moon face. 

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I won't argue with your interpretation. I think you're both right and wrong - they appear to be the same because leviathan and seadragon share the same roots, the same origins. Both Others and Dragons are products of the LN. In a sense, both are dragons (think Ice Dragon, the constelation with its prominent blue-eyed star pointing North). That's why George's choice of the leviathan is so clever. It's the same principle but not the same thing. 'Kingsblood' therefore probably encompasses both units of inheritance. Blood of the Dragon and Blood of the Other, for lack of a better definition. Both Viserys and fAegon are examples of the Icedragon. Recalling 'hands of gold are always cold', Viserys is crowned with molten gold, evoking the ww who melt away. The ominous iron helm appears in his death scene as well, in the form of the pot. He's a warg's 'dragon', a mummer's dragon, like fAegon, whom I believe is indeed Rhaegar's rescued son, born on the wrong side of the blanket. Like Viserys, he's no true dragon. That's the difference, imo. 

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So Im pretty new here, and I had no idea people were in a community like this, writing essays, and as involved as everyone is until recently. Im pumped to be here and Saw you on History of Westeros and started reading and listening. A couple things Im curious about-

Do you think the Church of Starry Wisdom is the same as the Red Temples and the religion of The Lord of Light?

Do you think the Black Oily Stones have their own "abilities"?

Do you think Ice Dragons are a real thing?

If Azor Ahai and Lightbringer create the Long Night, how can they possibly the Hero/Weapon that end the Long Night?

 

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5 minutes ago, TheSnowInWinterfell said:

So Im pretty new here, and I had no idea people were in a community like this, writing essays, and as involved as everyone is until recently. Im pumped to be here and Saw you on History of Westeros and started reading and listening. A couple things Im curious about-

Do you think the Church of Starry Wisdom is the same as the Red Temples and the religion of The Lord of Light?

Do you think the Black Oily Stones have their own "abilities"?

Do you think Ice Dragons are a real thing?

If Azor Ahai and Lightbringer create the Long Night, how can they possibly the Hero/Weapon that end the Long Night?

 

Hey there, welcome to the party! Yes, there's all manner of analysis to be found here, from fluffy fun stuff to weighty comparisons to classic literature and mythology. I've certainly learned a lot fro mthe community!

Fresh questions, I love it!

I suspect the Starry Wisdom people of perhaps creating R'hllorism, but it's only speculation. They may have something to do with the Faith of the Seven, which is all about the stars and whatnot. There are some interesting correlations between the two. Whatever the case, ultimately COSW and R'hllorists worship the same guy and the same magic. 

I think the oily black stones are magically toxic, yes. I suspect we might find out more about this in the future.

ice dragons a real thing... I want to believe, and it's hard for me to think George won't put them in, since he loves them so much and they would really fit. I'd say I'm 50/50 on it.

Ok, so I was just discussing this a few posts up this thread. I'll refer you to that. The very short of it is that his weapon may have changed hands, or he may have been redeemed or sacrificed. The sword may have been broken and reforged. 

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@Evolett, while researching the constellations of ASOIAF tonight, I found some great pearl moon maiden stuff I thought you would like. This is my section on "The Galley:"

 

The Galley Argo Navis -  "There was the Galley, sailing west"
The constellation Argo Navis, is a large constellation that appears in the southern sky, and it does indeed appear to be sailing west.  It is one of the 48 constellations recognized by Ptolemy, one of the world's oldest recognized astronomers (second century AD).  However, Argo Navis is the only one of these 48 to no longer be officially recognized... how sad.  But George has memorialized it here as the Galley.  Argo Navis is named for the ship Argo which was used by Jason and the Argonauts.  Interestingly, the Argo had a maiden on the prow of the ship, made from a sacred oak tree harvested from the oracle of Zeus at Dodona, and this maiden could talk and give sage advice. Contrast that to Euron's ship, the Silence: 
 
And then he saw her: a single-masted galley, lean and low, with a dark red hull. Her sails, now furled, were black as a starless sky. Even at anchor Silence looked both cruel and fast. On her prow was a black iron maiden with one arm outstretched. Her waist was slender, her breasts high and proud, her legs long and shapely. A windblown mane of black iron hair streamed from her head, and her eyes were mother-of-pearl, but she had no mouth. (AFFC, The Iron Captain)
 
The Silence was amongst the ships they passed. Victarion’s gaze was drawn to the iron figurehead at her prow, the mouthless maiden with the windblown hair and outstretched arm. Her mother-of-pearl eyes seemed to follow him. She had a mouth like any other woman, till the Crow’s Eye sewed it shut. (AFFC, The Reaver)
 
Call it an inversion or a sick parody, but Euron's silent iron maiden seems a warped version of the Argo's wooden maiden. Euron's iron maiden points the way, as if she has some wisdom to offer, but no mouth to speak it. Euron sewed the maiden's mouth shut, which must signify some kind of refusal of wisdom, entirely suited to Euron's character as one with no respect for basically anything whatsoever. Euron is also a Bloodstone Emperor manifestation, a usurper who stole the throne from an elder sibling and challenges the gods, and therefore he's the right person to be symbolized as being responsible for silencing the moon maiden.  This inversion of the wooden Argo maiden from the Jason story speaks of defilement and dastardly deeds, which is in keeping of the portrait we have sketched out of the Bloodstone Emperor.   
 
Both Euron and Jason sailed far and wide, but while Jason and the Argonauts slew a dragon to claim the golden fleece; Euron seeks to claim a dragon with his black horn. The wooden oracular maiden on the Argo came from the temple of Zeus, who is essentially a storm god, who like the Storm God of ASOIAF, hurls thunderbolts. Euron seems to be allied with the Storm God - Aeron claims crows are agents of the Storm God, and Euron is the Crow's Eye and has two crows holding up his black crown on his banner. It's also rumored that he is able to control the winds through blood sacrifice to aid his fleet. And then there is this little bit of hubris: 
 
"A smile played across Euron’s blue lips. “I am the storm, my lord. The first storm, and the last. I have taken the Silence on longer voyages than this, and ones far more hazardous. Have you forgotten? I have sailed the Smoking Sea and seen Valyria.” (AFFC, The Reaver)
 
In other words, both Jason and Euron are blessed by the Storm God, and are known for taking great voyages. 

There are two more parallels between the Jason's ship Argo and Euron's Silence, both to be found in the Grey King story and the moon destruction of the Long Night.  I believe that Euron's silent iron maiden represents the fallen moon.  Black iron suggest the moon meteors, especially a black iron maiden. She has those mother of pearl eyes - they're mentioned twice, and animated by the text to be following Victarion.  Pearls have always been associated with the moon (here's a great essay about pearls from my pal Evolett); the word "mother" added in gives us the moon mother idea; and of course pearls are found in the ocean, like our drowned moon goddess.  Therefore, a black iron maiden with mother of pearl eyes is a terrific fallen moon symbol.  The Grey King was said to steal the fire of the gods by tricking the Storm God into setting a tree ablaze with a thunderbolt, but I believe that thunderbolt was in fact a black moon meteor.  Therefore, Euron's silent maiden represents not only the fallen moon maiden, but also the Storm God's thunderbolt.  The ship Argo's wooden maiden comes from a sacred tree of a Storm God's oracle, while Euron's maiden symbolizes a Storm God's thunderbolt.  Euron's maiden is silenced because she symbolizes the death of a god, whereas the tree for the ship Argo was given with blessing and shares its wisdom freely. 

The Storm God's thunderbolt set fire to a tree, but separately, the Grey King was said to make longships from pale wood of "the demon tree" Ygg, which is pretty clearly a reference to Yggdrasil and therefore to weirwoods, which are largely based on Yggdrasil (the world tree of Norse myth).  So we see the "making ships from a sacred tree" idea of the Argo myth appear in a separate Ironborn myth, but one still connected to the Grey King and to weirwoods. Very cool.  
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Wow! I’m thrilled!  :thumbsup: :thumbsup: You’ve found the missing link I’ve been looking for. The Argo Navis constellation with its powerful parallel to Euron’s Silenceis  the clue to Euron’s real intentions. Great catch on the inverted symbolism of the wooden maiden! I’ve had the tale of Jason and the Argonauts earmarked for a long time, mainly because it is a representation of not ‘waking the dragon’, which I’m sure is central to the creation of Others. This ties into my last post here – that Kingsblood holds the potential for both dragons and others. I’ll need to dig out my notes on that but the main idea in the myth is to get past the dragon to steal the golden fleece, which we can visualize as a golden crown. In the tale, it’s Medea who points the way to wisdom – the key is to put the dragon to sleep (the Others are ‘sleeping dragons’ in various ways, the most obvious is the idea that they’ve been sleeping for thousands of years and the idea of ‘waking giants from the earth’ – same thing). The maiden who points the way in the Argonaut story is Medea, who comes up with the idea of putting the dragon to sleep. She also falls in love with Jason. He promises to marry her but goes back on his word (recalling Robb), and is punished for it.

Think also of Davos ‘smugglers stars’ in this context. He sees the Galley and the Crone – it’s the same combination and idea as the maiden on the ship – with her four lamps, the wise Crone lights the way for the Galley to follow. Euron silences the wooden maiden with pearl eyes – another example of abusing the pearl. He doesn’t want her wisdom, he wants to wake sleeping dragons. Not to be confused with Dany’s version of waking her inner dragon. He intends to wake giants of the earth, the other dragons, who should be left sleeping. (I’ll probably have a hard time convincing people of this but in part three of the pearl series, I’ll show how abusing the pearl is related to the Others so bear with me).

 

The Silence is a valuable clue in figuring out Euron’s actual plans. Silence is heavily associated with the North and the element Earth. I’ll just quote from my earth essay here:

Quote

Indeed, of the cardinal directions, the North is the most powerful. It is the direction of the unseen and of mystery and corresponds to the element Earth, dark colours, midnight, winter, the green of evergreen trees and the human body. Speech, silence and hearing are powers associated with the north.

 

As I pointed out earlier, his crew is mute, as mute as the wights controlled by the Others; his appearance (blue eye and red patch) mirror Bran and BR; drinking shade-of-the-evening mirrors weirwood paste. That Bran may be able to raise the dead is heavily implied and all I see around Euron suggests this is what he’s preparing for. He also advocates slavery and orders that forthwith all captured in war will be reduced to this status. This brings to mind the undead, who are spiritually enslaved by the Others. Silence also evokes the silent sisters who attend to the dead. What’s really missing is an investigation of the wind – Euron’s maiden has ‘windblown’ hair, recalling the Windblown led by the Tattered Prince (whose cloak reminds me of Mance).

 

There’s another tit-bit I find really amusing. Remember the ‘Patchface Code’ I detected last year? Well, it’s not really a code in the true sense of the word but it indicates that George does use a lot of wordplay, including malapropisms and other letter-twisters. On a whim, I ran Mag the Mighty’s name through a word-scrambler and can’t get over the feeling he’s placed relevant clues within: Some of the words that crop up are: Argonaut, Dragoman, Warthog, Madwoman, Thorn – all of which are quite relevant in my opinion. I found dragoman particularly interesting because that’s exactly how I view the Others: they are ‘dragon men’ – the humanoid form of a dragon (which the ancient Chinese believed in incidentally).

Anyway, great stuff LmL, love the write up so far, thanks for posting this in advance.  I’m glad you haven’t explicitly associated Euron with capturing a dragon, though giving Victarion a dragonhorn  appears to indicate this. One more thought on that – giving his brother the horn probably means he would like to consolidate both but that the real dragons are the secondary issue. As a BSE archetype, it’s also an indication that both dragons and others are a product of the BSE’s sorcery and a hint that these two are two sides of the same coin.

 

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9 hours ago, LmL said:

Hey there, welcome to the party! Yes, there's all manner of analysis to be found here, from fluffy fun stuff to weighty comparisons to classic literature and mythology. I've certainly learned a lot fro mthe community!

Fresh questions, I love it!

I suspect the Starry Wisdom people of perhaps creating R'hllorism, but it's only speculation. They may have something to do with the Faith of the Seven, which is all about the stars and whatnot. There are some interesting correlations between the two. Whatever the case, ultimately COSW and R'hllorists worship the same guy and the same magic. 

I think the oily black stones are magically toxic, yes. I suspect we might find out more about this in the future.

ice dragons a real thing... I want to believe, and it's hard for me to think George won't put them in, since he loves them so much and they would really fit. I'd say I'm 50/50 on it.

Ok, so I was just discussing this a few posts up this thread. I'll refer you to that. The very short of it is that his weapon may have changed hands, or he may have been redeemed or sacrificed. The sword may have been broken and reforged. 

I went back and read the posts you were talking about. I understand all the research you have done is absolutely fantastic and pertains to the story. It all fits. Im very confused as to how this will flip though and AA becomes the savior. Cant wait to see how this happens.

I think the oily black stones may have the ability to send visions or dreams, maybe even be able to get humans to do things by sending these visions. Like the chunk in the Sunset Sea. I think it may be telling Damp-Hair what to do. 

I hope that Ice Dragons are a thing. Have you seen the one in the clouds in episode 508? (i know i know)

In WoIaF, it says the church of Starry Wisdom is the religion is still being practiced today in port cities throughout the world. It would make sense if the Bloodstone Emperor's religion evolved into Rhlorrism.

I look forward to continued conversations and reading more of your work. I read the first essay about the GEotD. Was there a Part 2? i looked but couldnt find it.

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1 hour ago, TheSnowInWinterfell said:

I went back and read the posts you were talking about. I understand all the research you have done is absolutely fantastic and pertains to the story. It all fits. Im very confused as to how this will flip though and AA becomes the savior. Cant wait to see how this happens.

A couple of ideas I have are:

  • "the Darth Vader" - one final good dead at the end of a long life of evil, probably a sacrificial act
  • the "did I do that?" - perhaps the crashing to comet into the mon thing was an accident. Perhaps AA was playing around with starry magic and just fucked up, straight out. Perhaps he came to Westeros to try to fix the problems he caused
  • "the sun's son" - the LH is the son of Azor Ahai, atoning for his father's evil. I like this one a lot, I've seen a lot of potential foreshadowing for it
  • the "knocked the fuck out" - Azor Ahai was defeated at Battle Isle, potentially even killed, only to be resurrected and see the error of his ways. Perhaps someone bodysnatched his corpse to use his magic, who fucking knows.
  • the "broken swords can be reforged" - AA's black sword was broken and reforged, and somehow balanced or sanctified in the process. If Dawn is AA's sword, then this would be the ticket. AA's sword was black, yet Dawn is white, so if they are the same sword, there must have been a transformation, reforging, etc. Lots of broken swords in the story, including the Last Hero's. In this scenario, I'm guessing the King of Winter met AA with the original "Ice" of House Stark - that's the only thing that could break AA's dark lightbringer. Perhaps the two swords were melted down and combined, ice and fire, all that. I've seen some foreshadowing for this. Greatswords like Ned's Ice and Dawn contain enough steel for two swords, as we have seen. Perhaps that's the reason for these huge swords, because the answer to the Lightbringer mystery involves combining two swords to make one big badass sword.
1 hour ago, TheSnowInWinterfell said:

I think the oily black stones may have the ability to send visions or dreams, maybe even be able to get humans to do things by sending these visions. Like the chunk in the Sunset Sea. I think it may be telling Damp-Hair what to do. 

That would be 100% consistent with the very Lovecraftian vibe of the oil black stone. :) 

I definitely think George is giving us clues that people who sit on the Seastone Chair are changed, given the remarks made about Balon and the Grey King story of him growing corpselike. 

1 hour ago, TheSnowInWinterfell said:

I hope that Ice Dragons are a thing. Have you seen the one in the clouds in episode 508? (i know i know)

Man, I looked for it... they do focus on the clouds for a strangely long time... but I really don't see a dragon in there. :( But I'm still hopeful we will see one... like I said, it's kind of George's personal baby... the ice dragon is unique, something he thought up in a universe of borrowed ideas.. can't see how he wouldn't have it make an appearance. I'm of the opinion that more magical shit will be happeneing in the next two books, and that some people might be really turned off by it and think it's too much. There's this interesting phenomena where people who don't usually read fantasy have gotten into ASOIAF and there's this idea that's it's very minimalist on the magic - and it is, compared to high fantasy - but that's a bit of a misconception also, because George is simply very good at making magic seem realistic and gritty and so you don't notice it as much. But consider the following:

  • shadowbabies - WTF. I mean, really, WTF. 
  • dragons / dragonriding - George makes this realistic by showing us how people who try to mount a dragon usually die in TPATQ and through Quentyn's experience, and props to him for doing so. That's what would happen. It's like trying to walk up to a Tyrannosaurus rex and pat him on the head. What's the outcome going to be? The fact that anyone can ride a dragon is miraculous.
  • the Others - ice demons that have bones and blood but melt when stabbed with obsidian. They are probably 10,000 years old. Got it. 
  • skinchanging - human / animal bonding is one of the most common fantasy "tropes," and it's introduced early, so it doesn't really stand out too much, but we've seen with Varamyr and Coldhands and Bran / Hodor that it can go to some really freaky and weird places.
  • Bloodraven - yeah. i probably don't need to go into that. 
  • all the freaking zombies - I know it's popular know, but... hey, how did George see that coming, anyway? He was planning to write a bunch of stuff about zombies way before the Walking Dead et al appeared... guy is a genius. Anyway, zombies, pretty magical. UnCat freaked people out - get ready for more of that.
  • Glass Candles - we've only just gotten a taste. Marwyn is most likely bringing on to Dany, and then we'll see the real shit go down.
  • Copious astral projection - skinchanging, green seeing, glass candle use, all astral projection. Anytime astral projection is involved, shit can get really freaky. And that's the stuff of high fantasy - soul jars, bodysnatching, remote viewing and communication... high fantasy
  • The House of the Undying - pretty serious illusion / reality molding going on there. Toss in a side of psychedelics and shadow people... 
  • Squishers - and Deep Ones, Merlings, Sel;kids, etc - they exist. or at least they did. TWOIAF made that abundantly clear - their traces are everywhere. Aquatic humanoids of some kind - I don't know if they built anything or not, where there are from, if they are connected to the Bloodstone Emperor, what. I don't know. But I know they interbred with humans in several places, that's clear. So... fish people breeding with humans. That's freaky. "Dead things in the water" ight mean we will even see these fuckers. I tend to think Biter is part merling... and that's fucking frightening. 
  • Children of the forest - not only have they interbed with humans, but they are straight high fantasy. And I saw a cool theory the other day from James of Throens (who has a youtuibe channel) that the cotf are lizard people. Consider: cat's eyes - snakes and reptiles have them. Dappled or spotted skin - reptiles and snakes again. Black claws, three fingers and a thumb / 4 fingers - reptiles again. Living underground in caves? Lizard people. One of the cotf is nicknamed "scales." Why is that? Because they have scales?  It's a strange idea, but it's hard to dismiss. So now think about Bran, in a cave in the dark, being fed his friend in a bowl, by lizard people. Aye carumba. Not sure if the paste is Jojen himself or just his blood, but I think it's one of the two.   
  • Giants - don't forget them. They are giants. 
  • Green men - I seriously doubt they are ordinary men who wear antlers on their head. We are going to see the Isle of Faces - George said so - and when we do, I have a feeling it's going to be really freaky.
  • Faceless men - you noticed they cut Arya's face before they applied the new face, right? I mean what's going with that? Did they remove her face, or just slice it so they could bond the new face over her's? Seems like magic, right? What kind of magic is that? And of course the other person's memories and nightmares come with it... sweet.

Jees, I didn't know it was going to be that long. I probably didn't catch nearly everything either. And we haven't even addressed the seasons or crashed any comets into any moons yet. We haven't been to Sothoryos or Asshai. I think my point is made - if we see an ice dragon or some squishers, nobody should say "this is stupid, what's George doing to this series, now it's all wacky." 

/tangent

 

1 hour ago, TheSnowInWinterfell said:

In WoIaF, it says the church of Starry Wisdom is the religion is still being practiced today in port cities throughout the world. It would make sense if the Bloodstone Emperor's religion evolved into Rhlorrism.

I think that fits with the GEotD being a maritime civilization who was based in Asshai but ranged all the way to Westeros. Like the Phoenicians, they built outpost fortresses offshore of places they wanted top conquer or trade with. Valyria did the same thing with Tyroish, Volantis, and Dragonstone. So it makes sense that their influence might be seen in port cities. Also, mariners have always been fans of astronomy based religions, because sailors need to know the stars to navigate the open seas. Bloodstone was actually a favorite of ancient mariners because of its association to the stars, I have read. 

I think Marwyn has been to Starry Wisdom Church:

Quote

The Mage was not like other maesters. People said that he kept company with whores and hedge wizards, talked with hairy Ibbenese and pitch-black Summer Islanders in their own tongues, and sacrificed to queer gods at the little sailors’ temples down by the wharves. (AFFC, prologue)

1 hour ago, TheSnowInWinterfell said:

I look forward to continued conversations and reading more of your work. I read the first essay about the GEotD. Was there a Part 2? i looked but couldnt find it.

I wrote two follow ups to this: one based on the Church of Starry Wisdom and Valyria, the other on the Dothraki, Sarnori, Jogos Nhai, and a couple others. The formatting was a little screwed up in the forum switchover, so don't mind that. :)

I'm glad you're enjoying all this material, I'm super fired up about it and so it's always awesome to see others get excited about it as well. I love how much George is doing behind the scenes - it's a great way to balance extensive world building with not bogging down the main story. And like really complex music or art, there's always more to be gleaned with a re-watch, re-listen, re-read, etc. 

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