Heresy Branch Office E05

[wolfmaid7]

Glad to see we are up and running here.

 

Lastnight was a tough episode i'm still reeling that they killed another freaking Direwolf.I'll bitch about this forever

Per the origins of the Others.This is Greenseer level magic there's noway just a regular COTF pulled that magic out of the hat.there's a reason why the Greenseers were called the Sorcerers and the Shaman of the Children.

The visual though did make me think of something else someof ys had talked about on Heresy and it was also highlighted in the Worldbook and that was partnership with some factions of humans or "sympathetic humans" and the COTF.This is where i think the Direwolves,Crows and the weirwoods came in,reaching out to individuals of the FM who were naturally inclined to being contacted telepathically.It may very well have been a first contact situation where language was a problem then over time those humans began to identify with the natives a bit. 

Despite being tied to the weirwood,there seemed to be no resistence from the guy being sacrificed so i'm wondering if it was voluntary? 

[Mace Cooterian]

2 hours ago, Feather Crystal said:

I'm wary to believe that the show will reveal some of GRRM's biggest mysteries before he can, and so while I enjoy the show...I love the show...I'm not sure that we can take anything as confirmation as to it being the same in the books. It's one thing to say, for example, that Sansa ends back at Winterfell. On the show they married her to Ramsay, but it didn't (or hasn't) happen(ed) that way in the books. (Are we allowed to discuss the books here?)

@Feather Crystal its what you call a conundrum.  I've fallen into the same very trap last week after Dany's funeral pyre @ the Dosh Khaleen.  I was convinced that this "has to happen" in TWoW, until someone reminded me of GRRM stating that her walking into the flames of Khal Drogon's funeral pyre and emerging with three hatched dragons was a one time episode.  

Anyone can feel free to quote canon or dispute this claim.

The moral of this story is that we are "all" now in "uncharted territory" and must be careful on keeping things segregated...mummer's version or canon.

[Balerion the black kat]

So glad you started this thread Black Crow...I'm a long time Heresy lurker and thought of you when I saw the Other get created.

30 minutes ago, wolfmaid7 said:

i'm still reeling that they killed another freaking Direwolf.

Agree and it made me wonder how does this fit with the CoF statement that the Direwolves will outlast us all (speaking of the dwindling races)? Are they unreliable narrators when they choose to be? I guess all parties that speak can be sometimes

I hope this is just the mummers killing them off. Maybe for Shaggy it is. Sadly though, I could see Summer's death as a way of forcing Bran to warg other entities, such as wights.

On a funny note, I rewatched Leaf explaining why they created the Other and realized she said they were getting slaughtered... I originally thought she said "We were getting sorted"..which I thought was funny that she would use modern slang.

[Matthew.]

1 hour ago, Unkindessofravens said:

2. The Children either capture a group of First Men _or_ they bring in a tribe of First Men - the proto-Starks perhaps -- who are power-hungry and ready to cut a deal. Let's take the second case and run with it. Perhaps this is the Pact, or part of it. The proto-Starks get turned into White Walkers and are able to use their power to conquer the North (note the World Book's portrayal of the ruthlessness of the early Starks and how they had to fight many other families for the North). The sword Ice and the words Winter is Coming stem from here. 

I know I'm being repetitive at this point, but this is the interpretation I'm leaning towards as well, and fits really well with the more brutal picture we're given of House Stark in the world book.
 

 

1 hour ago, wolfmaid7 said:

Despite being tied to the weirwood,there seemed to be no resistence from the guy being sacrificed so i'm wondering if it was voluntary? 

I might be really reaching with this interpretation, but the scene last night put me in mind of this bit of Brandon the Builder lore:

 

Quote

Maester Childer's Winter's Kings, or the Legends and Lineages of the Starks of Winterfell contains a part of a ballad alleged to tell of the time Brandon the Builder sought the aid of the children while raising the Wall. He was taken to a secret place to meet with them, but could not at first understand their speech, which was described as sounding like the song of stones in a brook, or the wind through leaves, or the rain upon the water. The manner in which Brandon learned to comprehend the speech of the children is a tale in itself, and not worth repeating here.

I'm going to go out on a limb here, and say that this isn't really a story about how Brandon the Builder learned to do a convincing impression of a babbling brook, or the sound of wind rustling through leaves. For that matter, verbal communication doesn't seem to be all that large a barrier between the CotF and humanity.

I think there's more to the True Tongue - which is also described as musical, as singing - than just communication; I think what this story is really about is Brandon the Builder learning the Song of Ice in grisly fashion, so he could use that sorcery to raise the Wall.

[wolfmaid7]

1 hour ago, Balerion the black kat said:

.Agree and it made me wonder how does this fit with the CoF statement that the Direwolves will outlast us all (speaking of the dwindling races)? Are they unreliable narrators when they choose to be? I guess all parties that speak can be sometimes

I hope this is just the mummers killing them off. Maybe for Shaggy it is. Sadly though, I could see Summer's death as a way of forcing Bran to warg other entities, such as wights.

On a funny note, I rewatched Leaf explaining why they created the Other and realized she said they were getting slaughtered... I originally thought she said "We were getting sorted"..which I thought was funny that she would use modern slang.

I think they probably want to use CGI budget on the Dragons which,let's face it carry greater wow factor tv wise.Who don't pee their pant when those things appear.

Hahaha on the last one..true,true.

11 minutes ago, Matthew. said:

I might be really reaching with this interpretation, but the scene last night put me in mind of this bit of Brandon the Builder lore:

 

I don't think you are reaching at all.One of my theories regarding this is that BTB's been body hoping for 8,000yrs and Bran is the next in line for a body snatch.Much like what Bran does with Hodor and Varymur sixskins attempted to do with Thistle.No one would know that it was really them in the bodies of these people walking around.This to me explains why CH's reffered to the 3eyed crow as the Last Greenseer,which would only make sense if we are dealing with one person,be it our Bran or BTB.

So i'm thining BTB was the first human GS and his was a voluntary one.What strikes as strange and maybe they are keeping it vague because they don't know or they do.But has the figure in he tree copt to being Brynden Rivers? When i binged watched the episodes i swore in like episode two he said he's been waiting 1,000 yrs which makes no sense if he's Bloodraven.

[RoamingRonin]

4 hours ago, Matthew. said:

Within this realm of speculation, many people have already pointed out that there are certain aspects of the scene last night that remind them of the oldest (as of ADWD) Winterfell vision that Bran has, where a captive is being sacrificed on the weirwood, a ritual being carried out by humans.

Given that wide swathes of the historical nuance are removed from the show - a limitation of the medium, as you can't have your characters spouting constant history lessons - I wonder whether or not the Other-Cotf-Human dynamic in the books will be significantly more complicated.

In particular, I wonder at the chronology of the WWs creation. Were they created before the Pact, the last hurrah of the CotF to finally get men to stop destroying the weirwood, or were they created after the Pact to punish pact-breakers - or a new set of invaders -, with human allies being complicit in the creation of the WWs?

Personally, I prefer the latter, as I think it opens up several more interesting options--particularly when it comes to the history of House Stark.

What Leaf says to Bran strongly implies they were created at the height of the war with the First Men, not after during a peace time.

[e1kabong]

Oh, man...so nice to get out of the restrictions of the book forums and stretch out. It was real hard turning a blind eye to possible plot developments in regards to heresy and tinfoil hat theories.

Rather than drudge up my favorite tinfoil hat theories and how this season has affected some of them (AD = MR, WHY?!), here's something very unique to this episode. Over on Heresy (proper), I've noted how people's description of Bloodraven (pre-weirwood) is extremely similar to that of Dracula. In fact, Bran's journey to meet him is very reminiscent of Jonathan Harker's journey to Dracula's castle. The reason for this journey? Dracula is looking for a new place to live and needs Harker to make it happen.

Now, we can safely assume that the White Walker killed his body, even though it was off-camera. However, where is his consciousness? He fades away in "the dream". Can we be sure that he didn't use the opportunity to hijack Bran's body while Bran was in the dream controlling Hodor? The books' wargs talk often of the "second life" they live after their physical body dies. Will that concept make it to the show and is that what's happened? 

If Bloodraven is as sinister as this, will he lead Bran (and the Night's King mark) through the Black Gate, which may allow the Night's King to pass through? Really excited for the next few weeks, since I think we'll get this answer sooner rather than later.

[GeorgeIAF]

How did the Cotf expect ot control the WW ? 

[tmug]

4 minutes ago, GeorgeIAF said:

How did the Cotf expect ot control the WW ? 

It seems to me that the CotF thought they created the WW with dragon glass, they could destroy them with dragon glass as well. Somewhere along the lines the WW got smart and it backfired on the CotF... or so they want you to believe.

[GeorgeIAF]

3 minutes ago, tmug said:

It seems to me that the CotF thought they created the WW with dragon glass, they could destroy them with dragon glass as well. Somewhere along the lines the WW got smart and it backfired on the CotF... or so they want you to believe.

But how did they know that the WW will fight alongside them against the humans ? 

[Black Crow]

Well that moved last night. The Branch office experiment appears to work. I'll give you fair warning though that because of the way this side of the forum is structured I'll be opening another branch in 06.

As to my overall take on what we've just seen. I really don't go with the different factions of tree-huggers business.

As I see it there was red war between them and the First Men. They were losing because men were bigger and stronger and more numerous. So they decided to make their own. The guy we now know as the Nights King was sacrificed under the Winterfell heart tree - per Bran's book vision. The tree huggers brought down winter and unleashed their new army. Men sued for peace and the Pact was agreed. At this point the white walkers became redundant and as so often in history were cast off. Now the damned are coming back and want revenge on their former masters as well as reclaiming what they regard as theirs

[Free Northman Reborn]

I will join here, despite not being a heretic, or much of a Show fan. The restrictions of the Book forum have just become unbearable, given all the recent revelations from the Show.

So two things come to mind. It seems likely that Bran reaching back in time to influence a young Hodor for such an insignificant reason is likely intended to merely establish Bran's ability to impact past events, which was previously thought to be impossible. And likely this ability will eventually become crucial to defeating the Others - maybe by having him reach all the way back to the beginning to influence Brandon the Builder's actions 8000 years ago.

So this reminds me of another interesting reference - namely when Coldhands tells Bran that he is "Your monster, Brandon Stark". Could this signify that Bran goes back in time at some future date - once he has mastered this ability further - to create Coldhands in preparation for when he eventually needs him?

Similarly, could the Bran speaking to Asha through the Heart Tree and the Ravens on the Ice Lake Island be a future Bran, reaching back with more power than he currently possesses, in order to orchestrate events related to Theon's sacrifice for example?

And then the other question I have, after the Big Reveal on the Other's origin, is whether the Children were also responsible for the lopsided Seasons and the Long Night? Because the creation of the Others, from what we have seen so far, do not seem to have any component related to modification of the Seasons linked to it.

My pet theory would then be that the creation of the Others was not the first magical act of the Children that had unintended consequences. Many years earlier they had tried a different feat of cataclysmic magic - the Hammer of the Waters. And this likely caused the lopsided Seasons. The Others were created much later, and are only coincidentally linked to the Long Night, then. Or what?

[jet199]

Should probably point out that the mark Night's King gave Bran undoes any warding against others a place has. As soon as Bran has this mark the first think BR says to him is to leave, which means go south to the wall. Once Bran passes through the wall it to will lose it's ability to ward against WW. With BR's pridictive abilities in the show he must know this so the CotF and BR must want the WW to go south. This doesn't seem like an experiment gone wrong, it sounds like revenge.

[Blade of Sunlight]

10 minutes ago, jet199 said:

Should probably point out that the mark Night's King gave Bran undoes any warding against others a place has. As soon as Bran has this mark the first think BR says to him is to leave, which means go south to the wall. Once Bran passes through the wall it to will lose it's ability to ward against WW. With BR's pridictive abilities in the show he must know this so the CotF and BR must want the WW to go south. This doesn't seem like an experiment gone wrong, it sounds like revenge.

Though I also thought of this, there are a couple of thing that do not seem to match, first, why wouldn't BR do this from the start? lead him to the NK straight away and let him touch Bran, second, why would he then proceed to "teach" Bran in a hurry? if he only needs him to go past the Wall there is no need to tell him anything, finally, D&D said that had Bran been with BR when he met the NK "things would have ended much differently", which implies he likely wouldn't have been touched.

[Melifeather]

1 hour ago, jet199 said:

Should probably point out that the mark Night's King gave Bran undoes any warding against others a place has. As soon as Bran has this mark the first think BR says to him is to leave, which means go south to the wall. Once Bran passes through the wall it to will lose it's ability to ward against WW. With BR's pridictive abilities in the show he must know this so the CotF and BR must want the WW to go south. This doesn't seem like an experiment gone wrong, it sounds like revenge.

This is an absolutely brilliant observation! I agree that the plan all along was to allow the wights and white walkers over or through the Wall. The show needed a way to demonstrate that Bran unravelled the warding on the Wall.

Edited to add: and just like the show had the wights crawling on the walls and ceiling of the cave, they will climb over the Wall like ice spiders.

[jet199]

Someone pointed out that Sam's numbers for the Lord Commanders of the Nights Watch may well put the setting up of the watch in the time of the Andal invasion rather than earlier as we have been lead to believe. But of course Jon cuts Sam off before he can spell it out clearly and even though we also get Sam's POV we don't get told what he would have said which is odd. So it may be the case that the wall was build at first to be a boarder between men and the CotF during the pact hence why they helped build it but then the Andals came and started burning trees again. The CotF don't really care which men are attacking them so attack the people of the North who set up the night's watch to guard the wall and keep them out. The CotF get pissed at this so take the 13th Lord Commander, otherise him and send him south to kill his kin along with a terrible winter. They get fought back eventually and the wall is then warded against them and the watch over the next generation increase the high of the wall to a ridiculous level because they are terrified from what has happened.

[House Cambodia]

4 hours ago, Black Crow said:

The guy we now know as the Nights King was sacrificed under the Winterfell heart tree - per Bran's book vision.

On this point, surely not the Winterfell Heart Tree? It was surrounded by the stone spiral. That's the same spiral shape the WWs laid out he slaughtered wildlings in in season 1, yet the rangers didn't make anything of it. I'd have thought the Weirwood Tree in question is north of the (now) Wall.

[Muttering Ed]

7 hours ago, Balerion the black kat said:

So glad you started this thread Black Crow...I'm a long time Heresy lurker and thought of you when I saw the Other get created.

Har! I had the exact same reaction, immediately thought of Black Crow and his not-so-sweet three-fingered tree huggers.

Hello all. i'm a longtime loiterer in yon heresy threads. I like to watch. 

I also like the idea of Winterfell's heart tree being the site of original sin. That would explain a lot, as some of you have noted above. Thanks for that!

 

[ummester]

7 hours ago, RoamingRonin said:

What Leaf says to Bran strongly implies they were created at the height of the war with the First Men, not after during a peace time.

Nowhere does Leaf mention First Men in the show - this is what she says:

Leaf - We were at war. We were being slaughtered. Our sacred trees cut down. We needed to defend ourselves.

Bran - From whom?

Leaf - From you. From men (angry sad look)

I don't think the show is going into the invasion of Westeros timeline at all. The show doesn't mention that even First Men aren't indigenous. It is the simple, straight up version - white walkers were created to protect the girl hobbits and their trees from humans.

If we consider the show is the cut down version of the books, it seems what point in the timeline the first Other was created is irrelevant, only a long time ago, when things were green north of the wall and humans were fighting the girl hobbits. We know that tree must have been north of the wall because it is the same one we see Bran meet the Nights King at later.

So thematically, it seems all that matters is that the Nights King was created before the wall was raised to protect the trees - we still know nothing about why the wall was raised and so on. It's still people jumping to conclusions re everything other than how and why the Nights King was made.

Why do the wights try and kill the CotF? There is no proof that they are trying to, they are trying to get to Bran and everyone else (bar the 3 eyed Raven) is trying to stop them.

3 Eyed Raven says to Bran 'The time has come for you to be me.'

3 Eyed Raven says 'The time has come, leave me' to the Nights King, not to Bran and the Nights King cuts him down.

This could be construed as the 3 Eyed Raven has passed on control of the Nights King to Bran (although Bran isn't ready). At the least, it seems whatever connection the 3 Eyed Raven had with the Nights King will be passed to Bran.

[Matthew.]

3 hours ago, House Cambodia said:

On this point, surely not the Winterfell Heart Tree? It was surrounded by the stone spiral. That's the same spiral shape the WWs laid out he slaughtered wildlings in in season 1, yet the rangers didn't make anything of it. I'd have thought the Weirwood Tree in question is north of the (now) Wall.

While I liked the idea of the tree being Winterfell's heart tree, you raise a good point. The stone spiral seemed significant, yet it's totally missing at the WF godswood. I mean, stones can be destroyed or removed, but there's also mountains in the background of Bran's vision, and I'm not sure how consistent that is with the terrain of Show Winterfell, and the black pool around the heart tree is also missing. In addition, the tree's bark seems to have gone dark brown/black in Bran's second vision, possibly implying it has died, or changed in some way.

Given that the NK interacts with Bran in that vision, that may have been a glimpse of that particular site (the heart of winter?) as it looks at present.