Craster's Black Blooded Curse (or WTF happened to Benjen)

[sweetsunray]

7 hours ago, Voice said:

 

 

I look forward to hearing your thoughts, @ravenous reader. And might I just say that your username would really fit in nicely at the Hearth. I hope you join our forum so that we might discuss the Weirwood Ghost theory in detail.

The miasma concept is certainly something I can agree with. The bear-revenge he does in the books has that too. While one thing is avenged and indeed laid to rest, it is always taken a step too far by the "bad blood bear".

Example: the Harrenhal bear has been laid to rest, and Gregor killed Vargo Hoat (the bear is compared to Gregor with a pelt). But Gregor not only tortures and kills Vargo (the "scapegoat" abuser of the bear of HH), he breaks Pia's teeth and her pretty nose. And she smiles when Jaime shows her the head of one of Gregor's men who tried to rape her and (had her a hunnerd times, they all did). Later at Darry's when Amy claims how they promised her Beric's head, he remembers the presenting of a man's chopped off head to Pia and thinks Tyrion would quip "Whatever happened to giving a woman flowers?".

Chett is like a smaller Gregor who murdered the woman he desired, but when he last thinks of her, just as it begins to snow at the Fist, he thinks, "It wasn't the knife I wanted to put in you" to Bessa and in fact he had been picking flowers all morning to woo Bessa.

Anyhow, Gregor took the bear-revenge too far - he harmed the girl (the whore) Pia, and Chett murdered the woman he loved.

Same thing for Jaime, unkowingly. He's not the avenger at HH, but the peacebringer and the bear who stole the maiden from Vargo at the moment of the bear's death. However, he also said to Roose to give Robb Stark his regards. And a Flayed Man (a skinned bear) kills Robb giving him Jaime's regards, which Catelyn heard. It seems to me that the Boltons feel wronged by the Starks in some dark past, and they've been plotting and waiting to avenge themselves... Robb dies for a wronging done by an ancestor to Roose's forebears (   ) but it's just way over the top - breaking guest right, defilement of burial rites - and well resolves nothing, but only worsens the revenge cycle. Even the marriage of the stolen bride is a corrupted ritual. She's not even a Stark and raped, etc.

BTW Pia's wounds (nose and teeth) are featured often. I have seen Sam inflict them twice now - he smashed Small Paul's teeth in to put in the ember,  and in the fight with Dareon in Braavos Sam breaks his nose and makes his lip bleed in anger. Now Dareon is a shit imo, but Sam did make mistakes - spent most of the coin on a doctor for a man of 102 years old and a ship that was not going to wait. He also accuses Dareon of breaking his oath by wedding a whore for a night, and yet he himself already eloped with Craster's daughter and gave her his cloak already in aCoK, Jon III (which are wedding symbols), and later it's consummated. When Gilly says she's his wife now, she's technically right.

Oh and Jeyne Poole's nose is already taken by the 'bite, while Theon lost several teeth and some are loose so he can only eat mushy stuff. How much will she and Theon smile at the presenting of Ramsay's head, but also the collateral victims.

Rorge lost a nose and is always in the company of Biter whose teeth are filed, and they murder innocents.

[superninja76]

..Damn.

Now i'm sad.

 

[Flavia Gemina]

8 hours ago, sweetsunray said:

He calls it a purification process that takes the "bad blood" and all the anger and hatred away, which otherwise completely "consumes" a person and makes them destructive. Chett is consumed by hatred and anger, so much that his wens and boils grow red with angry bad blood. Ramsay's blood is beyond leeching - his blood would just poison the leeches. Gregor is indeed poisoned and his blood turns black, and is beyond leeching (and he wasn't a nice guy to begin with).

Lady Dustin points out how Roose is without emotions anymore to whom everyone else are mere things, how it's a game to him.

So, yeah I like the analogy of Roose-Other with Chett-wight.

Hehhehe, Craster worries on his black sausage.

I agree that greenseeing is essentially skinchanging a tree (though BR says that eventually you don't even need to see through a tree's eyes anymore, and seems to suggest you can just end up seeing wherever you wish in the far past or the future). And that Coldhands was saved in this way. Not sure though if that the Others are that though, because Coldhands looks like a wight, except for the blue starry eyes (which he does not have). I'll read Voice's theory first.

Gives new meaning to  the phrase "eat crow"

[shizett]

@sweetsunray , very detailed theory. I really enjoyed reading the OP.

I, however, have some objections to the reasoning behind the guest right. While I agree that there was no host-guest relationship established in NW’s first visit to Craster’s keep, I tend to view it as Jeor’s doing rather than Craster’s.  Based on the excellent collection of quotes that you have provided, it seems to me that Craster is trying to establish the guest-right, but is repeatedly put down by Jeor. Jeor is the one who refuses to take food or have everyone sleep in the keep (not that there was enough space). He purposefully gives gifts, both at arrival and departure, to ensure the end of any half-assed guest-right that might have been established. Jeor and other NW men might repeatedly say that Craster is a friend, but they sure do not act like it.
On their return from the Fist, Craster actually lulls them into the guest-right by first starving them. As you have noted later in the essay, since he seems to be the one breaking it and him and Jeor die as a result of it, I am not sure what to make of the events.
The only idea I can come up with is that Craster’s keep is not only Craster’s, it’s his wives’ too. They stay there and, as far as I remember, offer the remaining brothers food and are raped by them. While the brothers die later, some of the women might bear boys later with all the implications that might have.

Oh also, I always thought the reason Craster’s keep has no other chair other than his own is because he is a King (of sorts, symbolically). A King’s court never has any other chair other than his own, people are not supposed to sit in his presence. And it seems to me that the interactions between the NW and Craster are more of paying taxes rather than being a guest.

As for Jon, while I really like the idea that he resisted eating the suspicious bacon just because it was made of dead Benjen, it might also be because he needs to stay abomination free. Or that Sam and Bran, the two who came in contact with CH, needed to have eaten them. As for Sam having eaten the black sausage, in addition to Crows having black blood, he is the one who can open and pass through black gate. CH says it is because he is a brother and we think it might be due to his vows in front of the WW, but it might be because he is a brother who has black blood. (so very crackpot I know).

 

[sweetsunray]

1 hour ago, shizett said:

Based on the excellent collection of quotes that you have provided, it seems to me that Craster is trying to establish the guest-right, but is repeatedly put down by Jeor. Jeor is the one who refuses to take food or have everyone sleep in the keep (not that there was enough space). He purposefully gives gifts, both at arrival and departure, to ensure the end of any half-assed guest-right that might have been established. Jeor and other NW men might repeatedly say that Craster is a friend, but they sure do not act like it.

Craster asks for an axe several times: 3 times, in exchange for information, long before they have the talk about who sleeps where, food and wine. Jeor isn't going to get any information without giving Craster an axe. Jeor just ends up calling it a guest-gift. And it's not Jeor who says how many can only sleep inside. That again is Craster's decision. The crossbow is most likely given under similar circumstances, all in order for Sam to have enough info to draw a map. As for the food - notice that Craster only agrees to "tasting the wine" without agreeing to eat Jeor's food. Jeor does not call Craster a friend to the Watch; It's actually Thoren Smallwood who's the sole one who says that. And in the morning Jeor and others inside do eat Craster's food.

Guest right has little to do with "friendship" though. It makes the most sense as a custom for parlay between hostile men. You don't usually fear your host or guest may harm you is you are friends. I don't wave a white flag either when I go visit a friend. You only fly a white flag if you actually fear the other one might shoot at you. Hence, guest-right custom rituals were set up to arrange for a parlay situation where both parties are barred from harming one another and both can walk away unharmed, to then resume hostilities afterwards.

As for Craster starving the men... I don't think that has anything to do with lulling them into guest-right. If he wanted to establish guest right properly to keep them from harming him and his women when they outnumber him, he could have done so from the start. They were low on provisions and with several wounded. He starves them in order to keep them weak while also not provoking them into attacking hm and his by instantly refusing them. He's lulling them into believing there's guest right with the roof and fire, not the food, while giving them as little aid as possible.

To be honest, I don't think Craster is truly familiar with actual guest-right custom, nor even cares. I think he regards it as some false gods cultural custom invented by people and that anything goes as a custom as long as the guests believe they are bound to guest-right and don't harm him or touch his daughters. If a ranger were to say, if I stand on my head for five haertbeats then guest-right is accomplished, Craster would be fine with that. He'd still attack his guest if he feels the need for it, just as long as his guests believe they can't harm him. And weirdly enough, Jeor does seem to be under the impression that it was established, nor does he seem to realize that his men didn't break guest right when they killed Craster after he went for Karl. Jeor's interpretation of it is erronous, so I'm not sure we can say that Jeor purposefully tries to prevent guest-right from being established at the first visit. 

So, the NW men don't break guest right when they kill Craster, but they commit a crime against their vows by killing Mormont and each other. This imo is done with regards the bear-revenge motif. On the one hand they are rightfully angry and upset against Craster and free to make him answer for his crimes, on the other hand they take it too far and commit mutiny and rape for which Coldhands can righeously slay them afterwards. I think the main point is that Craster's death was not murder and justice, while Mormont's death was indeed murder.

[Voice]

On 9/5/2016 at 9:22 PM, Flavia Gemina said:

I read your theory. It brings to mind, first the philosophy of Rene Girard know as mimetics.

Secondly, the widespread use of human  body parts for Westeros place names. The fingers, the neck, the reach, the broken arm...add in a person named The Mountain.

 

The Weetetosi ecosystem is like one being. All parts interdependent, yet unwell. It is consuming itself.

 

 

On 9/5/2016 at 10:45 PM, sweetsunray said:

The miasma concept is certainly something I can agree with. The bear-revenge he does in the books has that too. While one thing is avenged and indeed laid to rest, it is always taken a step too far by the "bad blood bear".

Example: the Harrenhal bear has been laid to rest, and Gregor killed Vargo Hoat (the bear is compared to Gregor with a pelt). But Gregor not only tortures and kills Vargo (the "scapegoat" abuser of the bear of HH), he breaks Pia's teeth and her pretty nose. And she smiles when Jaime shows her the head of one of Gregor's men who tried to rape her and (had her a hunnerd times, they all did). Later at Darry's when Amy claims how they promised her Beric's head, he remembers the presenting of a man's chopped off head to Pia and thinks Tyrion would quip "Whatever happened to giving a woman flowers?".

Chett is like a smaller Gregor who murdered the woman he desired, but when he last thinks of her, just as it begins to snow at the Fist, he thinks, "It wasn't the knife I wanted to put in you" to Bessa and in fact he had been picking flowers all morning to woo Bessa.

Anyhow, Gregor took the bear-revenge too far - he harmed the girl (the whore) Pia, and Chett murdered the woman he loved.

Same thing for Jaime, unkowingly. He's not the avenger at HH, but the peacebringer and the bear who stole the maiden from Vargo at the moment of the bear's death. However, he also said to Roose to give Robb Stark his regards. And a Flayed Man (a skinned bear) kills Robb giving him Jaime's regards, which Catelyn heard. It seems to me that the Boltons feel wronged by the Starks in some dark past, and they've been plotting and waiting to avenge themselves... Robb dies for a wronging done by an ancestor to Roose's forebears (   ) but it's just way over the top - breaking guest right, defilement of burial rites - and well resolves nothing, but only worsens the revenge cycle. Even the marriage of the stolen bride is a corrupted ritual. She's not even a Stark and raped, etc.

BTW Pia's wounds (nose and teeth) are featured often. I have seen Sam inflict them twice now - he smashed Small Paul's teeth in to put in the ember,  and in the fight with Dareon in Braavos Sam breaks his nose and makes his lip bleed in anger. Now Dareon is a shit imo, but Sam did make mistakes - spent most of the coin on a doctor for a man of 102 years old and a ship that was not going to wait. He also accuses Dareon of breaking his oath by wedding a whore for a night, and yet he himself already eloped with Craster's daughter and gave her his cloak already in aCoK, Jon III (which are wedding symbols), and later it's consummated. When Gilly says she's his wife now, she's technically right.

Oh and Jeyne Poole's nose is already taken by the 'bite, while Theon lost several teeth and some are loose so he can only eat mushy stuff. How much will she and Theon smile at the presenting of Ramsay's head, but also the collateral victims.

Rorge lost a nose and is always in the company of Biter whose teeth are filed, and they murder innocents.

 

 

I'd be happy to discuss my theory on that thread, but I can't do it here for a few reasons. First, it's off topic. Also, as you will see in that thread, I put a lot of thought and time into my replies. This place keeps malfunctioning and losing even short responses for some reason. Not cool.

[Little Scribe of Naath]

@sweetsunray

In the earlier pages of the thread, we discussed the possibility of Bran having eaten wight-meat/human meat in his cave. 

There is an essay of cantuse similar to this topic, where she/he posited that the COTF and BR are, unknown to him, feeding Bran human meat in order to augment the growth of his magical abilities. What are your thoughts on such a possibility? 

Would repeated consumption of wight-meat/human-meat in Craster and his wives case, have any effect on these "sons" he gives up to the Others?

My apologies if this is too off-topic for the thread - feel free to ignore me if so.

[Illyrio Mo'Parties]

22 hours ago, shizett said:

@sweetsunray , very detailed theory. I really enjoyed reading the OP.

I, however, have some objections to the reasoning behind the guest right. While I agree that there was no host-guest relationship established in NW’s first visit to Craster’s keep, I tend to view it as Jeor’s doing rather than Craster’s.  Based on the excellent collection of quotes that you have provided, it seems to me that Craster is trying to establish the guest-right, but is repeatedly put down by Jeor. Jeor is the one who refuses to take food or have everyone sleep in the keep (not that there was enough space). He purposefully gives gifts, both at arrival and departure, to ensure the end of any half-assed guest-right that might have been established. Jeor and other NW men might repeatedly say that Craster is a friend, but they sure do not act like it.
On their return from the Fist, Craster actually lulls them into the guest-right by first starving them. As you have noted later in the essay, since he seems to be the one breaking it and him and Jeor die as a result of it, I am not sure what to make of the events.
The only idea I can come up with is that Craster’s keep is not only Craster’s, it’s his wives’ too. They stay there and, as far as I remember, offer the remaining brothers food and are raped by them. While the brothers die later, some of the women might bear boys later with all the implications that might have.

Oh also, I always thought the reason Craster’s keep has no other chair other than his own is because he is a King (of sorts, symbolically). A King’s court never has any other chair other than his own, people are not supposed to sit in his presence. And it seems to me that the interactions between the NW and Craster are more of paying taxes rather than being a guest.

Interesting notions. North of the Wall, Jon says, every man thinks of himself as a king.

Perhaps Craster needs to violate guest-right for some black magic reasons: power in blasphemy, sort of thing.

[ravenous reader]

@sweetsunray I was re-reading some Arya chapters, when I found these 'pork' quotes, which made me think of you  (P.S. I've been enjoying your bear analysis, particularly Gendry as hidden bear!)

Quote

A Clash of Kings - Arya IX

She filched one anyway, and ate it on her way out. It was stuffed with chopped nuts and fruit and cheese, the crust flaky and still warm from the oven. Eating Ser Amory's tart made Arya feel daring. Barefoot surefoot lightfoot, she sang under her breath. I am the ghost in Harrenhal.

The horn had stirred the castle from sleep; men were coming out into the ward to see what the commotion was about. Arya fell in with the others. A line of ox carts were rumbling under the portcullis. Plunder, she knew at once. The riders escorting the carts spoke in a babble of queer tongues. Their armor glinted pale in the moonlight, and she saw a pair of striped black-and-white zorses. The Bloody Mummers. Arya withdrew a little deeper into the shadows, and watched as a huge black bear rolled by, caged in the back of a wagon. Other carts were loaded down with silver plate, weapons and shields, bags of flour, pens of squealing hogs and scrawny dogs and chickens. Arya was thinking how long it had been since she'd had a slice off a pork roast when she saw the first of the prisoners.

 

A Storm of Swords - Arya X

"Keep your head down and your mouth shut," the Hound warned her as the three spurred toward them; a knight and two squires, lightly armored and mounted on fast palfreys. Clegane cracked his whip at the team, a pair of old drays that had known better days. The wayn was creaking and swaying, its two huge wooden wheels squeezing mud up out of the deep ruts in the road with every turn. Stranger followed, tied to the wagon.

The big bad-tempered courser wore neither armor, barding, nor harness, and the Hound himself was garbed in splotchy green roughspun and a soot-grey mantle with a hood that swallowed his head. So long as he kept his eyes down you could not see his face, only the whites of his eyes peering out. He looked like some down-at-heels farmer. A big farmer, though. And under the roughspun was boiled leather and oiled mail, Arya knew. She looked like a farmer's son, or maybe a swineherd. And behind them were four squat casks of salt pork and one of pickled pigs' feet.

 

A Storm of Swords - Arya X

"Salt pork for the wedding feast, if it please you, ser." The Hound mumbled his reply, his eyes down, his face hidden.

"Salt pork never pleases me." The pitchfork knight gave Clegane only the most cursory glance, and paid no attention at all to Arya, but he looked long and hard at Stranger. The stallion was no plow horse, that was plain at a glance. One of the squires almost wound up in the mud when the big black courser bit at his own mount. "How did you come by this beast?" the pitchfork knight demanded.

"M'lady told me to bring him, ser," Clegane said humbly. "He's a wedding gift for young Lord Tully."

A Feast for Crows - Arya II

She had other tasks besides helping Umma. She swept the temple floors; she served and poured at meals; she sorted piles of dead men's clothing, emptied their purses, and counted out stacks of queer coins. Every morning she walked beside the kindly man as he made his circuit of the temple to find the dead. Silent as a shadow, she would tell herself, remembering Syrio. She carried a lantern with thick iron shutters. At each alcove, she would open the shutter a crack, to look for corpses.

The dead were never hard to find. They came to the House of Black and White, prayed for an hour or a day or a year, drank sweet dark water from the pool, and stretched out on a stone bed behind one god or another. They closed their eyes, and slept, and never woke. "The gift of the Many-Faced God takes myriad forms," the kindly man told her, "but here it is always gentle." When they found a body he would say a prayer and make certain life had fled, and Arya would fetch the serving men, whose task it was to carry the dead down to the vaults. There acolytes would strip and wash the bodies. The dead men's clothes and coins and valuables went into a bin for sorting. Their cold flesh would be taken to the lower sanctum where only the priests could go; what happened in there Arya was not allowed to know. Once, as she was eating her supper, a terrible suspicion seized hold of her, and she put down her knife and stared suspiciously at a slice of pale white meat. The kindly man saw the horror on her face. "It is pork, child," he told her, "only pork."

 

9 hours ago, Illyrio Mo'Parties said:

Perhaps Craster needs to violate guest-right for some black magic reasons: power in blasphemy

Your notion may have some validity.  Check out the last quote above, in which there is a suggestion of cannibalism taking place in the House of Black and White, perhaps as part of Arya's initiation, similar to the dubious weirwood (?Jojen) paste Bran consumes in his parallel initiation in Bloodraven's hollow.

[sweetsunray]

Nice finds, @ravenous reader Yes, George plays around with it However at the HoBaW I think it's indeed only pork. I think though he put it in there to alert the reader to check out other chapters in other arcs with "pork" in it.

Hmmm, one of my favourite movies is Ravenous btw

[sweetsunray]

21 hours ago, Little Scribe of Naath said:

@sweetsunray

In the earlier pages of the thread, we discussed the possibility of Bran having eaten wight-meat/human meat in his cave. 

There is an essay of cantuse similar to this topic, where she/he posited that the COTF and BR are, unknown to him, feeding Bran human meat in order to augment the growth of his magical abilities. What are your thoughts on such a possibility? 

Would repeated consumption of wight-meat/human-meat in Craster and his wives case, have any effect on these "sons" he gives up to the Others?

My apologies if this is too off-topic for the thread - feel free to ignore me if so.

I'm not sure yet that George takes it as far. Some cannibalistic cultures did eat their enemies believing they would increase their warrior power that way. In other cultures it was a proper burrial, where only the women ate the deceased loved one, because they found the idea that worms and maggots eat their loved ones more horrid. They developed a disease called Kuru with symptoms similar to Creutzfeld Jacob (mad cow disease). Some people somehow got infected with the prion that impacts the brain, and they ate it, and got it this way. And the women gave bits as a "snack" to their children. People who developed kuru were mostly women and young children (from a certain age male children were told by the men not to touch that stuff anymore). It was believed that only women were spiritually strong enough to take in a body.

So far I think it's the only way to acquire meat in the frozen north where every animal and human being has been turned into a wight and it's a way to unwight them again. 2 birds in one stone so to speak.

But Sam has shown more courage, even when speaking to a king or commanders of other castles shortly after his return in aSoS. So it's possible it might have affected him in some way.

I find the idea interesting though, especially whether it might have an effect on Craster's wives and the children he fathered.

[Illyrio Mo'Parties]

19 minutes ago, sweetsunray said:

They developed a disease called Kuru with symptoms similar to Creutzfeld Jacob (mad cow disease). Some people somehow got infected with the prion that impacts the brain, and they ate it, and got it this way. And the women gave bits as a "snack" to their children. People who developed kuru were mostly women and young children (from a certain age male children were told by the men not to touch that stuff anymore). It was believed that only women were spiritually strong enough to take in a body.

I remember that. I believe they ran a chicken factory as well; Mulder and Scully shut them down, but a crowd of people trampled the cannibal leader to death before they could prove that anything supernatural had occurred. So close! I wonder if they had better luck the next time they encountered anything weird

[Little Scribe of Naath]

6 hours ago, sweetsunray said:

I'm not sure yet that George takes it as far. Some cannibalistic cultures did eat their enemies believing they would increase their warrior power that way. In other cultures it was a proper burrial, where only the women ate the deceased loved one, because they found the idea that worms and maggots eat their loved ones more horrid. They developed a disease called Kuru with symptoms similar to Creutzfeld Jacob (mad cow disease). Some people somehow got infected with the prion that impacts the brain, and they ate it, and got it this way. And the women gave bits as a "snack" to their children. People who developed kuru were mostly women and young children (from a certain age male children were told by the men not to touch that stuff anymore). It was believed that only women were spiritually strong enough to take in a body.

So far I think it's the only way to acquire meat in the frozen north where every animal and human being has been turned into a wight and it's a way to unwight them again. 2 birds in one stone so to speak.

But Sam has shown more courage, even when speaking to a king or commanders of other castles shortly after his return in aSoS. So it's possible it might have affected him in some way.

I find the idea interesting though, especially whether it might have an effect on Craster's wives and the children he fathered.

Woah, I wasn't aware that this concept had existed in real-life cultures. That's very interesting to know.

I think we might see much more of this kind of cannibalism come winter. As you say, it would kill 2 birds with one stone - solve hunger issues, and prevent too many wights.  

But the idea is pretty intriguing that repeated consumption might have some effects. With the whole notion of magic in this series being connected to dark, blasphemous acts (eg. blood sacrifices of children), I could see this being a slight possibility as well. 

 

[sweetsunray]

10 hours ago, Illyrio Mo'Parties said:

I remember that. I believe they ran a chicken factory as well; Mulder and Scully shut them down, but a crowd of people trampled the cannibal leader to death before they could prove that anything supernatural had occurred. So close! I wonder if they had better luck the next time they encountered anything weird

hehehehe. There was indeed an episode of Mulder and Scully that involved mad cows and CJ, and some guy who had been with the people of Papoea New Guinea. Here's some wiki background on kuru  with a tribe at Papoea New Guinea: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuru_(disease)

[sweetsunray]

5 hours ago, Little Scribe of Naath said:

Woah, I wasn't aware that this concept had existed in real-life cultures. That's very interesting to know.

I think we might see much more of this kind of cannibalism come winter. As you say, it would kill 2 birds with one stone - solve hunger issues, and prevent too many wights.  

But the idea is pretty intriguing that repeated consumption might have some effects. With the whole notion of magic in this series being connected to dark, blasphemous acts (eg. blood sacrifices of children), I could see this being a slight possibility as well. 

 

Endocannibalism (digesting remains of someone of the same tribe) is very rare, and most often it would be some bone retrieved from a funeral pyre, grounded and put into a drink or something. The Fore practice of actually eating flesh and organs of a loved one is I think a unique known culture.

Exocannibalism (digesting remains of the enemy or an unkown) developed more often in history. Sociological studies suggest that warfare with many casualties combined with hunger or poor food circumstances are the conditions in which such a culture or the practice develops. And that seems a very reasonable hypothesis. Not all people live at fertile ground with a great amount of livestock. If people live in an area or island group where resources are few and have to raid each other regularly with many casualties, it seems to me an ideal situation for cannibalistic practices to develop. After all hunger drives people to it in order to survive in such cases as people who were set adrift on the ocean or crashed with a plane in the high Andes, even though they abhorred it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exocannibalism

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essex_(whaleship)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1972_Andes_flight_disaster

[Flavia Gemina]

When one of Craster's wives gave birth he compared her to the sows while complaining about her cries.

 

maybe Craster represents some sort of equalizer or stabilizing force beyond the wall. He did awful but potentially necessary deeds for some reason. Like he is the nadir and someone else up there is the zenith.

[LmL]

1 hour ago, sweetsunray said:

Endocannibalism (digesting remains of someone of the same tribe) is very rare, and most often it would be some bone retrieved from a funeral pyre, grounded and put into a drink or something. The Fore practice of actually eating flesh and organs of a loved one is I think a unique known culture.

Exocannibalism (digesting remains of the enemy or an unkown) developed more often in history. Sociological studies suggest that warfare with many casualties combined with hunger or poor food circumstances are the conditions in which such a culture or the practice develops. And that seems a very reasonable hypothesis. Not all people live at fertile ground with a great amount of livestock. If people live in an area or island group where resources are few and have to raid each other regularly with many casualties, it seems to me an ideal situation for cannibalistic practices to develop. After all hunger drives people to it in order to survive in such cases as people who were set adrift on the ocean or crashed with a plane in the high Andes, even though they abhorred it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exocannibalism

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essex_(whaleship)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1972_Andes_flight_disaster

Nice thread you have going here @sweetsunray...   *barf*

 

LoL

[sweetsunray]

7 minutes ago, LmL said:

Nice thread you have going here @sweetsunray...   *barf*

 

LoL

Sigh, yes, I know Just for the record: I find it most gruesome and it totally gives me the shudders. The reason I like the movie Ravenous is because of the dark humor and Robert Carlyle's nutty acting.

[sweetsunray]

37 minutes ago, Flavia Gemina said:

When one of Craster's wives gave birth he compared her to the sows while complaining about her cries.

 

maybe Craster represents some sort of equalizer or stabilizing force beyond the wall. He did awful but potentially necessary deeds for some reason. Like he is the nadir and someone else up there is the zenith.

He does indeed compare a late wife to a fat sow and then ogles Sam.

No, I don't think he represents any equalizing force at all. George made sure that the murder of Craster is not a crime against the gods, not actual breaking of guest right.

[LmL]

Hey @sweetsunray, was just listening to the fArya wedding, and I noticed how disgustingly detailed the description of Wayman is. He's just absolutely pigging out on Frey Pie, crust in his beard, gravy on his shirt... and it occurred to me his son was also fed human meat. So that's two Manderly cannibalisms, and it also occurred to me that since Manderlys symbolize merlings / deep ones / etc, we can link this to tales of the Deep Ones and Squishers et. al. coming ashore to steal and eat children, also to Fat Bastard who will "eat your baby."

 

ETA: I mean he doesn't have to eat six fucking portions of the damn pie to pull off the stunt.  This is a man who is gleefully devouring the human flesh of his enemies. That dude is a sick fuck. 

Oh and Biter is a merling and he eats people too.