A Weirwood Ghost

[LmL]

Hey you know what they say about sitting on the pot... do your business or get off that thing.

[Sly Wren]

19 hours ago, Voice said:

You have no idea how worried I was that you, @Sly Wren, @skinchangingsweetrobin, or @Matthew. were going to post a Miasma theory before me. LOL

HA! The idea of miasma hadn't crossed my mind at all. So you were completely safe from my bird brain stealing your thunder. And it is a fabulous idea.

And I answered you here.

[Voice]

20 hours ago, Sly Wren said:

HA! The idea of miasma hadn't crossed my mind at all. So you were completely safe from my bird brain stealing your thunder. And it is a fabulous idea.

And I answered you here.

LOL! And thanks

I'm making my rounds. I still need to recompose my response to @Evolett too. Apologies for the delay Evolett. Busy few days.

[Sly Wren]

On May 5, 2016 at 10:04 AM, Voice said:

LOL! And thanks

I'm making my rounds. I still need to recompose my response to @Evolett too. Apologies for the delay Evolett. Busy few days.

No worries. 

[Voice]

On 4/26/2016 at 3:21 PM, evita mgfs said:

A great body of my literary analyses focus on sound in Martin’s series.  With the nature of your essays, you might appreciate how the brilliant Martin orchestrates musicality within his text.

@Addicted to Snow, is that you??? LOL

Always get a kick out of people who pretend to respond to an OP, but are actually just posting so they can copy and paste their own OP.

[Voice]

On 5/3/2016 at 4:55 PM, Evolett said:

The forum is a big pain at the moment, I agree. I'll have a look over at the other side

@Evolett, I finally recomposed it (again). LOL

http://thelasthearth.freeforums.net/post/33523/thread

Please respond over there, if you don't mind. I don't use this forum much anymore and I have a feeling it will be experiencing even more traffic and errors after Sunday.

 

[LmL]

26 minutes ago, Voice said:

@Addicted to Snow, is that you??? LOL

Always get a kick out of people who pretend to respond to an OP, but are actually just posting so they can copy and paste their own OP.

@evita mgfs's research is actually fantastic and you should count yourself lucky if she is willing to share it with you. 

Personally, when I write about a topic that also excited other people enough for them to write about, I feel like it's a good thing and I'm always interested to hear what they have to say. I'm not sure I get your attitude here. If you see someone put out an essay on a topic you've already written about, don't you click to see what they say? And if they wrote something cool, don't you then chime in and say "oh yeah this is so cool, I wrote about this too!" ? 

I mean... we're all working with someone else's creative ideas here. 

[Voice]

3 hours ago, LmL said:

@evita mgfs's research is actually fantastic and you should count yourself lucky if she is willing to share it with you. 

Personally, when I write about a topic that also excited other people enough for them to write about, I feel like it's a good thing and I'm always interested to hear what they have to say. I'm not sure I get your attitude here. If you see someone put out an essay on a topic you've already written about, don't you click to see what they say? And if they wrote something cool, don't you then chime in and say "oh yeah this is so cool, I wrote about this too!" ? 

I mean... we're all working with someone else's creative ideas here. 

I was just teasing, but clearly too harshly.

I do apologize @evita mgfs. I was just surprised to see such a brief response to SW, followed by a full-length essay. Not that it isn't a great essay... It's just reminded me of what this dude Addicted to Snow used to do. He'd give a one-liner, then post his latest essay.

I am sorry.

[Voice]

An Explanation of the OP's Title:

 

Westeros is a place for trees and giants and cotf. Left alone, I think there would have never been a Long Night. 

And, I think it is rather telling that while the Long Night did touch parts of Essos to varying degrees, it engulfed Westeros like the web of a great spider. 

This tells me that Westeros is unique, and it is my belief that it is weirwoods that make it unique. 

I think the power of weirwoods (and their desire to protect themselves) is often underestimated by the fandom, even Heretics. But then, of course I would feel that way as my own grand theory of everything depends upon the trees to such a large degree. 

But, leaving that aside, if we look at Westeros as a continent composed of sentient trees that is defending itself against the antigen of mankind, a whole lot of things fall into place quickly and easily. 

And, I might note, Jon Snow's own special place within (my version of) this struggle is quite perfectly illustrated by the existence of Ghost. 

I had a lot of readers and comments on my theory, and I truly appreciate the interest. But what few have realized is that the Others themselves are not what I meant by the title of "A Weirwood Ghost" . . . I was talking about Jon Snow. 

Jon Snow is A Weirwood Ghost, because, Ghost. 

We have no tales of any albino direwolves ever having existed before. And, I have a feeling that weirwoods, like Ned, keep "the older way":
 

His lord father smiled. "Old Nan has been telling you stories again. In truth, the man was an oathbreaker, a deserter from the Night's Watch. No man is more dangerous. The deserter knows his life is forfeit if he is taken, so he will not flinch from any crime, no matter how vile. But you mistake me. The question was not why the man had to die, but why I must do it."

Bran had no answer for that. "King Robert has a headsman," he said, uncertainly.

"He does," his father admitted. "As did the Targaryen kings before him. Yet our way is the older way. The blood of the First Men still flows in the veins of the Starks, and we hold to the belief that the man who passes the sentence should swing the sword. If you would take a man's life, you owe it to him to look into his eyes and hear his final words. And if you cannot bear to do that, then perhaps the man does not deserve to die.

Consider the bold. Let's look at it again...
 

If you would take a man's life, 
you owe it to him to look into his eyes 
and hear his final words. 

And if you cannot bear to do that, 
then perhaps the man does not deserve to die.

Now, let us ask ourselves, what have weirwoods been doing for the past ten thousand years? (And it just so happens that Ned was talking to the child that will wed the trees.)  I propose that weirwoods themselves share Ned's modus operandi...
 

If we (weirwoods) would take mankind's life,

we owe it to them to look into their eyes

and hear their final words.

According to Brynden, time is a river that pushes man forward. Yet the river does not move weirwoods. This can be divided into three fundamental tenets:
 

1. River = Time
2. Time pushes Man
3. Weirwoods push Time

And I'm realizing I'm talking way too long about this. I should just flesh it out and stick it in a new OP. But until then, to summarize the stuff floating around in my head...
 

And if the weirwoods could not bear to do that,

then perhaps mankind does not deserve to die.

I'm thinking that after having had time to process some very long, slow thoughts, that the collective consciousness of weirwoods (which seems to be informed by, if not composed of, the consciousnessess of every form of life that inhabits Westeros) found that, perhaps, man does not deserve to die. 

Jon's puppy is the proof. 

 

[LordBlakeney]

On 1/6/2017 at 2:32 AM, Voice said:

And if the weirwoods could not bear to do that,

then perhaps mankind does not deserve to die.

I'm thinking that after having had time to process some very long, slow thoughts, that the collective consciousness of weirwoods (which seems to be informed by, if not composed of, the consciousnessess of every form of life that inhabits Westeros) found that, perhaps, man does not deserve to die. 

This is beautiful. I dig it.

 

On 1/6/2017 at 2:32 AM, Voice said:

If you would take a man's life, you owe it to him to look into his eyes and hear his final words. And if you cannot bear to do that, then perhaps the man does not deserve to die.

I'm sure this has been discussed, but thinking about the Night's Watch saying their vows before the eyes of a weirwood. If the Night's Watch were originally all resurrected, then maybe the origins of this "older way" were the weirwoods/greenseers listening to the words of the NW oath before sacrificing and resurrecting the Night's Watch brothers. Conspicuously absent from the oath Sam recites to the Black Gate is any mention of life and death (along with the holding lands and fathering children). All credit to @LmL on the undead Night's Watch, I just hadn't associated the "old way" that Ned mentions about looking into eyes and hearing words with weirwood eyes and the NW words! Very cool.