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The dead of Starks


alparslanturkmen

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For a moment Eddard Stark was filled with a terrible sense of foreboding. This was his place, here in the north. He looked at the stone figures all around them, breathed deep in the chill silence of the crypt. He could feel the eyes of the dead. They were all listening, he knew. And winter was coming.

This sounds as if they are alive. May be their souls might come out in tough years. What do u think?

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  • 6 months later...
On 21-2-2016 at 7:13 AM, alparslanturkmen said:

For a moment Eddard Stark was filled with a terrible sense of foreboding. This was his place, here in the north. He looked at the stone figures all around them, breathed deep in the chill silence of the crypt. He could feel the eyes of the dead. They were all listening, he knew. And winter was coming.

This sounds as if they are alive. May be their souls might come out in tough years. What do u think?

I've done an anlysis on the crypts in a symbolical way. The dead are dead. But it is vividly described in an underworldly way, and there is power in it - https://sweeticeandfiresunray.wordpress.com/2015/10/07/persephone-of-the-winterfell-crypts/

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If the Night's King marches to Winterfell, can he raise the dead Starks from the crypts as White Walkers? Is there significance to the old kings' swords on their crypts?  (I loaned my books out, but I think there was something about the old kings of winter graves in Bran's chapter when they were hiding in the crypts)

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1 hour ago, willowbark said:

If the Night's King marches to Winterfell, can he raise the dead Starks from the crypts as White Walkers? Is there significance to the old kings' swords on their crypts?  (I loaned my books out, but I think there was something about the old kings of winter graves in Bran's chapter when they were hiding in the crypts)

One of the POV characters (and I assume it's Bran, in the chapter you say, recalling an Old Nan story at one point) mentions how the tradition of leaving the Iron swords lain across the resting places of the dead Lord Starks of Winterfell -- especially the very old ones who were Kings in the North/Kings of Winter -- is to pin their otherwise restless spirits in place.  Of course, some graves are so old that the swords on them have long since rusted away to nothing and just the rust stains remain, as (Bran, I assume) describes.

A very familiar sounding legend/mythology of ancient burial customs in real human history that are, of course, just old fancies in reality.  But the sorts of things that, in fantasy novels where magic is often real, turn out to be accurate.

As with most questions we have about the series, we are going to have endure the wait for the next (and then again for the final) book to finally have our answers, but you'll find lots of speculation around this forum on ancient mojo in the blood of the first men, specifically the bloodline of House Stark, in Winterfell itself, the crypts in particular, that ritual of putting iron swords over the tombs as a ward/seal, the significance of it being iron swords, and what older, darker, forgotten double meanings the mantras of "Winter Is Coming" and "There Must Always Be A Stark In Winterfell" bear, and what things may have happened when Bran and company displaced those swords/  Up to and including a White Walker/Stark connection since, perhaps even before, the Night's King who was so conspicuously scrubbed from official Wall/Night's Watch history.  Been a while since I've been around here but I always took keen interest in that sort of thing and I'm sure it's still popular food for theorycraft.

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