Speculations on the identity of the Drowned God

[hiemal]

In the interest of discussion and the always welcome input of the razor-sharp readers who seem to catch so much that I miss I thought I'd bring up a few ideas about what the Drowned God might be.

1. Nothing. The simplest and possibly most appealing explanation is that the DG is nothing more than a figment, a racial memory, myth, and symbol.

2. A fragment of the celestial body that brought about the LN catastrophe.

3. An idol of OBS like those on Toad Island that was drowned in an ancient deluge.

4. A weirwood hearttree of a ring of the same that was corrupted by OBS either before or after being submerged during a battle between the CotF and the Deep Ones. This one is my current favorite. It could explain the driftwood crowns and I believe there is some support in Patchface's verses about fish with wings and birds with scales- fishes moving about the drowned but essentially immortal trunks and branches like birds (ravens?).

Chime in with any other suspects.

[TheRealRedRonnet]

Drawing a blank here.. OBS=who?

[Lord Varys]

The Drowned God is Cthulhu, plain and simple.

If you check your HPL lore you'll notice that the Deep Ones worship Cthulhu, too, but unlike them he isn't a fish-frog but a being whose city eventually sunk down to the bottom of the sea when the seas changed. Cthulhu is no marine deity/creature, and the Drowned God isn't, too. He has been drowned and he has watery halls, but he doesn't seem to have lived there in the ancient days.

The Ironborn and other island/coastal folk all have various degrees of Deep One blood in them (e.g. the Sistermen) but it seems as if the Ironborn only know about their god - the Drowned God/Cthulhu - through their interactions with the Deep Ones in ancient times. And Cthulhu himself is, of course, no deity at all but a very powerful extraterrestrial/transdimensional entity, not a 'real deity'.

The Grey King can be see as a hint to the Deep One transformation thing that went on in Innsmouth. If you become a Deep One you are immortal, and the Grey King didn't die but went (back) in the sea with mermaid/Deep One wife. The present-day Ironborn may no longer have that much Deep One blood because nearly all of the sons of the Grey King killed each other, diminishing the amount of Deep One blood among the later Ironborn.

But then, this is most likely all bogus and the Drowned God is just a deity the Ironborn made up. Both Cthulhu and Jesus clearly seem to be a basis for the Ironborn faith. It is really viking-like Christianity fused with Lovecraftian elements.

[hiemal]

1 hour ago, TheRealRedRonnet said:

Drawing a blank here.. OBS=who?

Oily, Black Stone. It has a sinister reputation.

[hiemal]

54 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

The Drowned God is Cthulhu, plain and simple.

If you check your HPL lore you'll notice that the Deep Ones worship Cthulhu, too, but unlike them he isn't a fish-frog but a being whose city eventually sunk down to the bottom of the sea when the seas changed. Cthulhu is no marine deity/creature, and the Drowned God isn't, too. He has been drowned and he has watery halls, but he doesn't seem to have lived there in the ancient days.

The Ironborn and other island/coastal folk all have various degrees of Deep One blood in them (e.g. the Sistermen) but it seems as if the Ironborn only know about their god - the Drowned God/Cthulhu - through their interactions with the Deep Ones in ancient times. And Cthulhu himself is, of course, no deity at all but a very powerful extraterrestrial/transdimensional entity, not a 'real deity'.

The Grey King can be see as a hint to the Deep One transformation thing that went on in Innsmouth. If you become a Deep One you are immortal, and the Grey King didn't die but went (back) in the sea with mermaid/Deep One wife. The present-day Ironborn may no longer have that much Deep One blood because nearly all of the sons of the Grey King killed each other, diminishing the amount of Deep One blood among the later Ironborn.

But then, this is most likely all bogus and the Drowned God is just a deity the Ironborn made up. Both Cthulhu and Jesus clearly seem to be a basis for the Ironborn faith. It is really viking-like Christianity fused with Lovecraftian elements.

That's an interesting combination, both faiths focused on resurrection but to such different ends. I wouldn't want those missionaries knocking on my door. "Have you hear the Truth of the Drowned God? If you died today would you be ready to rise again, harder and stronger? Are you ready to pay the Iron Price for salvation?"

I'm with you on the Shadows Over Innsmouth connection, btw. Just pondering what exactly they find when they swim down there. And who is in on it.

[Lord Varys]

Well, the Christian parallels are actually much stronger than all the Cthulhu stuff, at least in the books themselves. Despite being a huge Lovecraft fan I never picked up on all that simply from the books. It is all pretty subtle in there.

But both the promises of the Ironborn faith (immortality in some sort of afterlife) as well as their rituals (the lighter version of the Drowning is essentially just a baptism) actually closely resemble Christianity.

In addition TWoIaF has added the story of the priest-king Lodos: this self-proclaimed 'living son of the Drowned God' is obviously the Ironborn version of Jesus - a man who claims to be a god's son but obviously failed to deliver (Lodos couldn't call up the krakens from the deep to defeat the Targaryens and, just as Jesus, he never came back after he 'died'). Although the fact that Lodos' corpse was never found is rather intriguing.

If you want to play with the whole Deep Ones thing then the Ironborn and their priests really sucked at understanding the whole thing. Neither the Deep Ones nor Cthulhu are about the Iron Price, raiding, or being fearsome warriors. But in light of their stupidity and illiteracy it is easily understandable why they never understood the real plan. This could also explain why the hell they no longer mingle with the Ironborn and stuff - they decided they were too stupid for that ;-).

[hiemal]

13 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

If you want to play with the whole Deep Ones thing then the Ironborn and their priests really sucked at understanding the whole thing. Neither the Deep Ones nor Cthulhu are about the Iron Price, raiding, or being fearsome warriors. But in light of their stupidity and illiteracy it is easily understandable why they never understood the real plan. This could also explain why the hell they no longer mingle with the Ironborn and stuff - they decided they were too stupid for that ;-).

While I agree that the Deep Ones would likely have little use for treasure, the practice of gathering salt wives could explain a Deep One/IB link if the DOs are involved in some sort of breeding project that requires lots of fresh blood.

I didn't make the Lodos/JC connection, good catch. As for the baptism, I can see that going either way- a commentary on the nature of one of earth's dominant faiths (kind of inverted with the viking faith for lols) or as a symbolic representation of a promise of a later transformation to an aquatic form.

[Blind Beth the Cat Lady]

I am a fan of #4, as you know. :-)

Whatever it is I do think there is something real with a psychic influence over the Iron Islands.

Something else I've been pondering. Aeron insists that no woman may sit the seastone chair. And of the Ironborn we know, Asha is by far the most sane. Her proposal at the Kingsmoot is objectively the best plan. She doesn't seem influenced by whatever force causes so many Ironborn to be so committed to hyperviolence. She doesn't *mind* paying the iron price for things but is also not opposed to sowing.

So whatever it is...it seems like it doesn't affect women as much as men. And it knows its limits in that regard, urging an extremely patriarchal culture (even more so than on the mainland). I have no idea what that might mean, but it seems significant.

[Neptunium]

On 2/19/2016 at 10:21 PM, Blind Beth the Cat Lady said:

I am a fan of #4, as you know. :-)

Whatever it is I do think there is something real with a psychic influence over the Iron Islands.

Something else I've been pondering. Aeron insists that no woman may sit the seastone chair. And of the Ironborn we know, Asha is by far the most sane. Her proposal at the Kingsmoot is objectively the best plan. She doesn't seem influenced by whatever force causes so many Ironborn to be so committed to hyperviolence. She doesn't *mind* paying the iron price for things but is also not opposed to sowing.

So whatever it is...it seems like it doesn't affect women as much as men. And it knows its limits in that regard, urging an extremely patriarchal culture (even more so than on the mainland). I have no idea what that might mean, but it seems significant.

An interesting idea. I don't believe the seastone chair affects people minds; but an unnatural increase in testosterone levels would explain the Ironborn's behaviour, and it would likely affect women less than men. 

 

I don't think that's what happened though. When Robb was trying to figure out who to swear to, one of the Freys suggested waiting the war out and choosing the winner. Robb's bannermen's reaction to this was a similar to the Ironborn's reaction to Asha.

Okay, the Ironborn are a little more... extreme than the Northmen, but I think the concept is the same.

[hiemal]

On 2/19/2016 at 4:21 PM, Blind Beth the Cat Lady said:

 

.

So whatever it is...it seems like it doesn't affect women as much as men. And it knows its limits in that regard, urging an extremely patriarchal culture (even more so than on the mainland). I have no idea what that might mean, but it seems significant.

Perhaps because the OBS, and whatever force lurks behind or beneath, ultimately manifests itself by perverting that which exists rather than as a creative force? We do not sow.

And when the Ironborn do "sow", how often is it into the unwilling loins of salt-wives, twisting even procreation into rape?

 

[Spring Bass]

I think it's just another force of magic, sort of like how magical forces run through fire, blood, and ice on Planetos. The way it affected Patchface fits as well - he's been driven mad, but he speaks prophecy. 

[hiemal]

1 hour ago, Electric Bass said:

I think it's just another force of magic, sort of like how magical forces run through fire, blood, and ice on Planetos. The way it affected Patchface fits as well - he's been driven mad, but he speaks prophecy. 

I'm not sure about the qualifier, but I don't disagree with the sentiment.

I'm not at all convinced that Patchface has been changed by the Drowned God. He's on the wrong coast, for starters. GRRM has said that the DG is "an Ironborn thing" so I think we need to look elsewhere to explain the obvious parallels.

He was drowned by the Storm God, as the DG is rumored to have been, but he has not risen again harder or stronger but softer and weaker of mind.

My tinfoil on PF (based on his ravings) is that he has been changed by an OBS-free drowned grove attended by merlings, an aquatic variant of the CotF, with some sort of fish or dolphin in lieu of ravens.

[Dorian Martell]

On 2/13/2016 at 8:08 PM, hiemal said:

In the interest of discussion and the always welcome input of the razor-sharp readers who seem to catch so much that I miss I thought I'd bring up a few ideas about what the Drowned God might be.

1. Nothing. The simplest and possibly most appealing explanation is that the DG is nothing more than a figment, a racial memory, myth, and symbol.

2. A fragment of the celestial body that brought about the LN catastrophe.

3. An idol of OBS like those on Toad Island that was drowned in an ancient deluge.

4. A weirwood hearttree of a ring of the same that was corrupted by OBS either before or after being submerged during a battle between the CotF and the Deep Ones. This one is my current favorite. It could explain the driftwood crowns and I believe there is some support in Patchface's verses about fish with wings and birds with scales- fishes moving about the drowned but essentially immortal trunks and branches like birds (ravens?).

Chime in with any other suspects.

Since the author said we will never see any god in the books, we can safely assume that the drowned god is nothing. On par with all of hte 7 

[hiemal]

53 minutes ago, Dorian Martell said:

Since the author said we will never see any god in the books, we can safely assume that the drowned god is nothing. On par with all of hte 7 

There's a comfortable amount of wiggle room between "actual" divinity and non-existence.

[Dorian Martell]

12 minutes ago, hiemal said:

There's a comfortable amount of wiggle room between "actual" divinity and non-existence.

No. 
We will never see them. 

[hiemal]

21 minutes ago, Dorian Martell said:

No. 
We will never see them. 

And even more wiggle room between not seeing and not being.

[Dorian Martell]

 we will never see them, as the reader, therefore they do not exist in the novels 

[hiemal]

11 minutes ago, Dorian Martell said:

 we will never see them, as the reader, therefore they do not exist in the novels 

We will never see Asshai or the Shadow that lies beyond but they still exist in the novels and have an influence over events.

[Dorian Martell]

2 minutes ago, hiemal said:

We will never see Asshai or the Shadow that lies beyond but they still exist in the novels and have an influence over events.

No, not the same at all. Characters in the book have been there, therefore, we have seen it, descriptions, lore, characters suggesting other characters go there, characters saying the boat they sent there will take two years to get back from their trip there. The drowned god, the red god, the gods of the 7 are not seen by anyone. 

[hiemal]

16 minutes ago, Dorian Martell said:

No, not the same at all. Characters in the book have been there, therefore, we have seen it, descriptions, lore, characters suggesting other characters go there, characters saying the boat they sent there will take two years to get back from their trip there. The drowned god, the red god, the gods of the 7 are not seen by anyone. 

And that may mean that they don't exist in any way shape or form- which was my first speculation for the DG and has always been on the table for the Seven as well since we've seen so little from them. Beyond a few rumored healings and the possible sea-rebirth of Davos to counter Aeron's debatable rising again blah blah...

That's neither the only nor the most interesting possibility aside from actual godhood (which was never one of my speculations for the DG, the 7, R'hlorr, or any other power or rumors of power). Not seeing something directly is not the same as not being influenced by. Whether or not we "see"  any of the so-called gods, and whatever their natures might actually be, people live and die and kill in their names and so they are part of what shapes the story.