Heresy Branch Office E05

[Clariana]

11 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.

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.

Well, it only takes one to reproduce and Nymeria seems to be doing that quite successfully. So it is still possible that the dires will survive then all...

[Eli Stark]

11 hours ago, Mace Cooterian said:

@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.

You saying we should be skeptical like Arya watching the mummers version of her family history in the very same episode as we got some history of the Others?

[Black Crow]

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.

I'm thinking of before Winterfell was built, or rather of Winterfell being built up around the tree. Given that the very earliest of Bran's book visions features just such a human sacrifice under the Winterfell weirwood I'm inclined to see this as a pointer to the Starks being complicit in what's going on.

[Black Crow]

Off at a very slight tangent from that scene. While it obviously hasn't featured in the books [other than through Bran's vision] I'm reminded of an exchange in series 1 when Sam said that the white walkers raised the dead by touching them. Obviously not canon says you and of course even in the mummers version the "Nights King" raises the dead by gesturing with his hands rather than annointing them individually. However I'm mindful of the fact that GRRM himself wrote that particular episode, so I'm not much inclined to dismiss it out of hand.

Then if we fast forward to the episode with Craster's son, he is turned when the "Nights King" touches him with his finger; the process beginning with the boy's eyes changing. Likewise we saw the turning of the unnamed sacrifice begin with the eyes. Are the walkers the product of some kind of magic virus.

[House Cambodia]

Not sure 'virus' is the right concept, especially if there are only 13 - that's gotta be the worse virus ever!

We do need to know how many WWs there are/were. Currently it looks like NK aside, all of them are crasterbabies. Well it works in terms of numbers, but if they are crasterbabies, why are they all grown up?

And having seen a bunch of children in this episode, it's even more striking that they all appear to be female.

[Black Crow]

I don't know. While we saw there were 13 when Craster's boy was turned, I have a strong suspicion - reinforced by the way they are all growed up - that they may represent the 13 heroes and the Nights King the Last Hero.

[House Cambodia]

7 minutes ago, Black Crow said:

I don't know. While we saw there were 13 when Craster's boy was turned, I have a strong suspicion - reinforced by the way they are all growed up - that they may represent the 13 heroes and the Nights King the Last Hero.

Smacks of Christ and his apostles. Bless. 

[RoamingRonin]

4 hours ago, ummester said:

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.

The invasion might not be mentioned in detail on the show but it is included in the History of Westeros compilations on the Game of Thrones Blu-ray boxsets. Besides, why else would there be a distinction between the First Men, Andals and Rhoynar? It's part of the history of this adaptation.

They wights are trying to kill everything in the cave. I don't see how this can be misconstrued as anything else.

The Raven was talking to Bran both times. There is no controlling the Night's King which is why the world was almost overwhelmed by the White Walkers.

[House Cambodia]

8 minutes ago, RoamingRonin said:

The invasion might not be mentioned in detail on the show but it is included in the History of Westeros compilations on the Game of Thrones Blu-ray boxsets. Besides, why else would there be a distinction between the First Men, Andals and Rhoynar? It's part of the history of this adaptation.

The issue is in the show is any ethnic, cultural or any other substantial distinction made between them? I think they're all just lumped together as Men.

[RoamingRonin]

6 minutes ago, House Cambodia said:

The issue is in the show is any ethnic, cultural or any other substantial distinction made between them? I think they're all just lumped together as Men.

By whom? Because if you men by other men then yes, hence the various different names for the various different people. If you mean by the Children, there were no other kinds of men during the Long Night. The Andal invasion happened after.

[Maglor78]

The preview for E06 has a hooded figure on horseback saving Meera and Bran.  Seems like time for Coldhands to save the day. 

[House Cambodia]

8 minutes ago, RoamingRonin said:

By whom? Because if you men by other men then yes, hence the various different names for the various different people. If you mean by the Children, there were no other kinds of men during the Long Night. The Andal invasion happened after.

By whom? The showrunners. I was responding to a poster who says the First Men were darker skinned and the Andals white; thus the sacrificed man was Andal, not FM. My point is D&D are not making that distinction, so at the moment we can't know if that guy was FM or Andal. It makes a heck of a difference concerning when and why the WW were created by the COTF, but right now his skin colour offers us no clue.

[Tucu]

39 minutes ago, Maglor78 said:

The preview for E06 has a hooded figure on horseback saving Meera and Bran.  Seems like time for Coldhands to save the day. 

Joseph Mawle is back to the show in the next episode according to IMDB. So either Benjen saves the day or they merged the characters of Benjen and Coldhands.

[No One of Importance]

13 hours 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

 

To be fair, the fact that some Stark direwolves have died doesn't mean the whole race is going extinct at this point in time.

[Black Crow]

1 hour ago, House Cambodia said:

The issue is in the show is any ethnic, cultural or any other substantial distinction made between them? I think they're all just lumped together as Men.

But at the same time its unlikely that the tree-huggers are going to make any distinction either. They are all white eyes - hence Leaf's reference to men.

[Black Crow]

10 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

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.

 

Har, too true but that's the nature of the beast. Having been in the business from both sides I know only too well how the mummers version of anything can differ and yet ultimately remain true to the original.

On the one hand this present series is not what we're going to get in the book - how could it, the book hasn't been finished yet let alone published. The mummers are quite literally forced to make it up as they go along. Indeed the major reason why this season has been so notably better is that the mummers have the luxury of writing a coherent narrative rather than trying to shorten and adapt an existing story. There's no need to amalgamate characters and scenes, cut out peripheral story lines and then invent stuff [and characters] topaper over the gaps.

What we've got are the bare essentials. We know that a couple of years back the mummers had a critical conference with GRRM in Santa Fe in order to learn the outcomes of the story arcs of the critical characters - and make sure which characters are critical. 

This is where the mummers' version and the books still to come diverge, not in the important stuff but in the detail. To borrow a well used phrase many roads lead to the same castle. The mummers know about the castle, but they are perforce taking their own road to get there. I think therefore that we can be reasonably sure that Jon Snow will be raised from the dead. We've had hints enough already. Its probably true that Mel will do the deed although the method and the circumstances are probably going to be very different. I doubt though that the book will see Jon rise from funereal flames with silver hair and an affinity with dragons. Something which the show definitely appears to be setting up is Jon's being Ice to Danaerys the Dragonlord's Fire and that's so strong we can be reasonably confident its coming from GRRM. Likewise the battle for Winterfell stuff. Whatever the personal outcome for Jon and Sansa, the way the Winterfell dynamic is going; Jon's reluctance and Sansa's gift of that cloak had me expecting her to use that line of Maester Aemon, quelling his doubts by asserting that whatever his name he is a son of Winterfell, and I'm confident that she will tell him. 

Essentially what I'm saying is that notwithstanding the book to come inevitably being different from the mummers' show we're seeing, the essential milestones are in there.

[Black Crow]

10 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

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?

Got a little carried away there...

In response to this one my own view is that the histories are as skewed as everything else we've been told in the books and that the Long Night was the ultimate act of the war between men and tree-huggers. The latter were losing and so called down the Long Night and created their winterised soldiers. Finding themselves on the losing side men then sent the 13 heroes out to find the tree-huggers and cry pax and its only then that the Pact was agreed and the tree-huggers betrayed their now redundant soldiers as an earnest of their good faith.

[Black Crow]

And as to the latter, perhaps they might best be seen as an ancient version of the Golden Company; exiled losers who want what was once theirs.

[Matthew.]

2 hours ago, Black Crow said:

I'm thinking of before Winterfell was built, or rather of Winterfell being built up around the tree. Given that the very earliest of Bran's book visions features just such a human sacrifice under the Winterfell weirwood I'm inclined to see this as a pointer to the Starks being complicit in what's going on.

Look at the heart tree from the scene where Ned is cleaning Ice, or when Ramsay is married to Sansa. Different tree, different face.

Edit: Also, Luwin's death scene for another good look at both the tree and the godswood.

[The Chequered Raven]

20 hours ago, ummester said:

We still don't know what show Bloodraven 'uploaded' into to Bran. Perhaps he did upload that the CotF are little tricksters that imprisoned him in the tree? Perhaps he uploaded that the Walkers protect the wierwoods and without wierwoods the whole planet would die, making the existence of the wierwoods more important than any other lifeform on planetos, including humans.

I don't know that there is any proof of factions of CotF - just CotF. And we don't know that the CotF are on the side of humanity - only that they were trying to prevent the Nights King from reaching Bran. Perhaps the Nights King doesn't want to kill Bran at all but disclose some other secret that the CotF hid from Bloodraven?

Yes, there are way more questions open than we got answers last WE!

What was confirmed ist that the CoF createt the walkers (at least one), and something seems to have gone wrong... Did their magic failed and the outcome was not what they expected? Did their creations turned against the creators later? Why, at which point?

The goal of the walkers ist still unclear. It seems they try to eradicate mankind, but why? Maybe they have good reasons...