Heresy 192 The Wheel of Time

[LmL]

9 minutes ago, Feather Crystal said:

A nice parallel inversion I would say....I think you could draw some conclusions regarding the process by wondering what the inversion would be? The ice priestess could remain human and non-magical like Gilly since that would be more of an inversion to a warm magical fire priestess. I like FFR's version that Craster's children are actually brought back to the cave and sacrificed. Nothing magical about that part. The transformation then is the use of the blood to feed the weirwoods into producing the white walker out of water and cold air.

The CQ is specifically said to have cold skin and blue star eyes, so the one thing we know about her is that she IS magical, not a normal human. The inversion is simply ice for fire and black shadows instead of white. 

[Armstark]

1 minute ago, Black Crow said:

Again I'd see it more a matter of variation rather than inverstion. Mel and the other red priests appear to be Fire made flesh just as Craster's boys are Ice made flesh, and animated by complete rather than part souls.

Victarion appears to be in the process of transformation and I'll be curious to see whether the rest of him gradually turns into roast pork and crackling.

Aren't the dragons fire made flesh? I think Melisandre is more flesh made fire.

Others= Dragons

Pale queen = Melisandre

[LmL]

10 minutes ago, Black Crow said:

Creation is probably the wrong word. I think that in both cases we are dealing with the power to bend shadows of the respective elements; Ice and Fire, into a simulacra of a human, then transfer a living soul into that simulacra; which fundamentally in magical terms probably isn't too far removed from transferring a soul from one living soul to another, ie; its just another form of skinchanging.

Now there are differences of course. Fire consumes. Mel's shadow babies don't last long because they are smoke animated by only a part of Stannis' soul. Craster's sons on the other hand are ice and animated out of whole cloth and young cloth at that, stinking of life.

Yes, i tend to think about them as white shadows which were shadow-bound to their current icy bodies somehow. There might have been a way to freeze the black shadow sin place too, or bind them to a corpse or body or whatever, but we know something like this is def happening with the Others. 

[LmL]

3 minutes ago, Armstark said:

Aren't the dragons fire made flesh? I think Melisandre is more flesh made fire.

Others= Dragons

Pale queen = Melisandre

Yes, absolutely, and both the Others and dragons have heavy meteor symbolism - the Others are a wave of cold burning stars, and dragons come from the moon like fiery meteors, they are a flaming sword above the world, and so on. Melisandre is also a symbol of that fire moon from which dragon come - her black shadow children are also parallel to dragons (think of Drogon the Winged Shadow). Others, who symbolize cold burning stars, come from an icy moon woman. The Night's King and Stannis are both corrupted / inverted solar figures, night suns or dark suns. Rhaegar is too, and Lyanna is parallel to the CQ. Her son is Jon Snow, who parallels the Others in many ways. Aegean the C's ice moon queen was Visenya, who rode a hoary white dragon, who created the white shadow knights of the KG whose symbolism parallels the Others exactly, and whose hill gleams with white marble and crystal.  Rhaenys was the fire moon for Aegon, her hill is a burnt out former home of dragons, just like the moon which died giving birth to dragons. Elia of Dorne was Rhaegar's fire moon lady, she died horribly too shorty after giving birth to a dragon.   It goes on and on - solar king with two wives, one icy and one fiery. Stannis even has an icy queen too, Cerise, who lives a the Nightfort, to go along with Mel as his fire moon queen.

[Black Crow]

3 minutes ago, Armstark said:

Aren't the dragons fire made flesh? I think Melisandre is more flesh made fire.

Others= Dragons

Pale queen = Melisandre

Yes, I think that's a good distinction. Craster's sons' white shadows and Stannis' black shadows are both souls transferred into new bodies of Ice and Fire respectively, while the Red lot have had their own bodies transformed. I wonder if Val has an heart of Ice?

As to dragons - yes I have wondered...

[LmL]

9 minutes ago, Black Crow said:

Again I'd see it more a matter of variation rather than inverstion. Mel and the other red priests appear to be Fire made flesh just as Craster's boys are Ice made flesh, and animated by complete rather than part souls.

Victarion appears to be in the process of transformation and I'll be curious to see whether the rest of him gradually turns into roast pork and crackling.

The key to understanding Mle is that dream she has of the fire being inside her, searing her and transforming her, together with the knowledge that she does not need to eat anymore, and rarely needs to sleep - soon she hopes to escape sleep altogether, indicating a process. She is becoming fire made flesh, or as you say, her flesh is becoming fire. All the fire robes and fire tattoos of the red priests are hinting ethos underlying truth, that human can transform themselves into being of living flame... or living ice.

So the CQ, she was already transformed or transforming. Then she met the NK and made Others with him... 

[Frey family reunion]

30 minutes ago, Feather Crystal said:

I think you are on to something here. After all when Bran learned of the Childen's history he said that if it happened to humans that they would be "wroth" and want to kill their enemy. Do you suspect a division amongst the Children and/or the godhead? 

The blood of Craster's children was likely the sacrifice and then the rest would be viewed as just meat. Makes sense to me!

Did you read Snowfyre's theory about the source of Craster's meat stores under his Keep?  Perhaps the blood and soul goes to the "Cold" but the meat stays with Craster.

1 hour ago, LmL said:

I very much agree with viewing the black shadows mel makes as parallels to the white shadows which are the others. Furthermore, i subscribe to @Durran Durrandon's theory about Melisandre and the Corpse Queen of the NK being parallel as the mothers of these shadows, and of course Stannis and the NK have obvious parallels. Mel sucks the vitality from Stannis to make black shadows, and the NK gave his seed and soul to the CQ to make white shadows. Mel has warm skin and red star eyes, just as the CQ has cold skin and blue star eyes... this makes CQ not a wight or an Other, but an ice priestess who is transforming herself with 'ice magic' just as Mel is with fire magic. The transformed state of these two ladies seems to be what enables them to birth shadows, I would say. That is the difference between what crater and his wives are doing and what NK and the CQ were doing - CQ was a magical, icy being where Gilly is not. Craster's children need to be converted by the Others, but the NQ may have been able to do that herself. We can't know what the process is like, and we have to figure out how the CQ might relate to greenseers and weirwoods, but there is a clear parallel here with these shadow babies, certainly. 

I am a big fan of Forbidden Planet - one of my Dad's favs - and I recall it well. I agree martin is probably using the "monsters from the id" idea, though it had not occurred to me. Interesting that Stannis sort of dreamed the killing of Renly, you know? The idea that the Others are the weirwood id is interesting, I shall have to ponder that. I have entertained all sorts of ideas about how the Others might come from trees, with my current favorite being this: take Jon's assumed resurrection process of using Ghost as a soul jar and swap Ghostout for a wired. It seems possible Jon might merge with Ghost, and what will be brought back to Jon's body might be some sort of merged Jon-Ghost. What if the same happened with a greenest and a weirwood? Ghost symbolizes a weirwood, after all. Imagine a greener dying, going into the net for a few days, and then his body is raised, and somehow his spirit is put back in - but some of the weirwoodnet comes along. You 'd have a tree bodysnatching a person. What if you created ice body golems out of the NK and CQ babies and put some weirwoodnet / greenseer intelligence in there? Something like that? 

There is interesting imagery connection the Night's King/Corpse Queen and with what I think is GRRM's major inspiration for the sacrifice of Craster's sons, the Canaanite god, Moloch. 

Quote

Fearing nothing, he chased her and caught her and loved her, though her skin was cold as ice, and when he gave his seed to her he gave his soul as well.

ASOS, compare to another best selling book:

Quote

Again, thou shalt say to the children of Israel, Whosoever he be of the children of Israel, or of the strangers that soujourn in Israel, that giveth any of his seed unto Molech; he shall surely be put to death: the people of the land shall stone him with stones.

Leviticus 20:2

Quote

And I will set my face against that man, and will cut him off from among his people; because he hath given of his seed unto Molech, to defile my sanctuary, and to profane my holy name.

Leviticus 20:3

and ect. ect.

 

[Armstark]

3 minutes ago, Black Crow said:

Yes, I think that's a good distinction. Craster's sons' white shadows and Stannis' black shadows are both souls transferred into new bodies of Ice and Fire respectively, while the Red lot have had their own bodies transformed. I wonder if Val has an heart of Ice?

As to dragons - yes I have wondered...

Well, you know my view: I think Rhaego's soul was split in three and transferred to the dragons. Not one dragon with three heads but one head (Rhaego) with three dragons. Not Fire and Blood but Blood (MMDs tent) and Fire (the pyre). The sphinx is the riddle not the riddler and the valyrian sphinx is part dragon (Dany), part human (Drogo and Dany) and part stallion (Drogo).

[Armstark]

9 minutes ago, Frey family reunion said:

Did you read Snowfyre's theory about the source of Craster's meat stores under his Keep?  Perhaps the blood and soul goes to the "Cold" but the meat stays with Craster.

There is interesting imagery connection the Night's King/Corpse Queen and with what I think is GRRM's major inspiration for the sacrifice of Craster's sons, the Canaanite god, Moloch. 

ASOS, compare to another best selling book:

Leviticus 20:2

Leviticus 20:3

and ect. ect.

 

And Bran gave his seed to the crows atop the Night King's tower...

[LmL]

10 minutes ago, Frey family reunion said:

Did you read Snowfyre's theory about the source of Craster's meat stores under his Keep?  Perhaps the blood and soul goes to the "Cold" but the meat stays with Craster.

There is interesting imagery connection the Night's King/Corpse Queen and with what I think is GRRM's major inspiration for the sacrifice of Craster's sons, the Canaanite god, Moloch. 

ASOS, compare to another best selling book:

Leviticus 20:2

Leviticus 20:3

and ect. ect.

 

Wasn't the idol of Molech a huge metal statues that was heated up, with the babies to be sacrificed fed in through the mouth to burn inside? Probably themes hideous form of worship ever decided, btw. The idea of burning the babies doesn't make me think of others, is the point, but the theme is the same pretty much. Have you found any other allusions to Molech?

[Frey family reunion]

Just now, Armstark said:

And Bran gave his seed to the crows atop the Night King's tower...

Good catch.

[GloubieBoulga]

16 minutes ago, Black Crow said:

Creation is probably the wrong word. I think that in both cases we are dealing with the power to bend shadows of the respective elements; Ice and Fire, into a simulacra of a human, then transfer a living soul into that simulacra; which fundamentally in magical terms probably isn't too far removed from transferring a soul from one living soul to another, ie; its just another form of skinchanging.

 

Agreed. Indeed Mel is a shadowbinder, not a shadow-creator. That means that the "shadow" (I also suspect a kind of "soul", if it's not directly the "soul" of a dead person) is existing for itself and can be bound... or perhaps act alone, perhaps (I would like to say surely ^^) with the old thought of the living creatures it inhabits. 

 

Now the question is : how could they be "alive" ?

- the proximity with the comet (=a fire) = even if she isn't visible for a man at the very beginning of the saga, that don't mean she is far. That would be a kind of "cosmic fate", Others are waking up when comet approaches.

- the proximity with special blood (that to make a parallelism with "blood king"), and here I think to the blood of the NIght Watchers. In the series, we see the "solid" form of the Others only with Watchers. It's seems "pure" wildlings only know the "mist form". Craster is the son of a Watcher, and yes, babies are very strongly full of life. Why Watchers in particulary ? Perhaps basically the long living near a magic Wall, which influences the blood more and more with the time. That could also explain why the Watchers are massively attacked at the Fist, and not the Wildlings : the shadows were attracted (and the Watchers are cursed)

 

OK... 7 answers while I'm scriving 

[Black Crow]

Perhaps its simply a matter of Craster's sons being harvested because they are latent wargs/skinchangers

[Frey family reunion]

21 minutes ago, LmL said:

Wasn't the idol of Molech a huge metal statues that was heated up, with the babies to be sacrificed fed in through the mouth to burn inside? Probably themes hideous form of worship ever decided, btw. The idea of burning the babies doesn't make me think of others, is the point, but the theme is the same pretty much. Have you found any other allusions to Molech?

Yes, the Weirwood tree in Whitetree where the bones of a human (perhaps child?) were found amongst ashes in the Weirwoods' mouth. 

Quote

It was the biggest tree Jon Snow had ever seen, the trunk near eight feet wide, the branches spreadking so fat that the entire village was shaded beneath their canopy.  The size did not disturb him so much as the face... the mouth especially, no simple carved slash, but a jagged hollow large enough to swallow a sheep.  Those were not sheep bones, though.  Nor is that a sheep's skull in the ashes.

And down South, I'm very, very partial to the idea of the tower of joy serving a similar purpose for the hatching of dragons.  Moloch was depicted as a human with a bull's head (very similar to another creature prominent in the sacrifice of youth, the Minotaur).  And of course we have the armored, bull headed knight, Ser Gerold Hightower front and center of what I think was less a tower and more a furnace with a chimney.

[LmL]

1 minute ago, Frey family reunion said:

Yes, the Weirwood tree in Whitetree where the bones of a child were found amongst ashes in the Weirwoods' mouth. 

And down South, I'm very, very partial to the idea of the tower of joy serving a similar purpose for the hatching of dragons.  Moloch was depicted as a human with a bull's head (very similar to another creature prominent in the sacrifice of youth, the Minotaur).  And of course we have the armored, bull headed knight, Ser Gerold Hightower front and center of what I think was less a tower and more a furnace with a chimney.

That's interesting; I tend to associate jerold the White Bull with Mithras's white bull - the white bull was slain so Mithras could be reborn. Jon is Mithras, and a white bull dies at his birth... furthermore, Ghost has a lot of white bull symbolism hung on him, and I expect his wolf body to die at Jon's rebirth also. The sacrificial bull is very common in mythology, but it's quite the opposite of a devouring bull figure, isn't it? I am not really seeing a devouring type of association with Gerold, though the weirwoods certainly have it. The weirwoods also have fire associations via their leaves looking like a "blaze of flame" and because of the fact that they bestow the fire of the gods on people, like the burning tree of the Grey King myth.  The weirwood as a burning tree strengthen the parallel to Molech, I'd say.  But the weirwoods are not purely sinister and demonic, like Molech - they seem to have another side as well. Thought they are demon trees, of course.     

[Frey family reunion]

54 minutes ago, LmL said:

That's interesting; I tend to associate jerold the White Bull with Mithras's white bull - the white bull was slain so Mithras could be reborn. Jon is Mithras, and a white bull dies at his birth... furthermore, Ghost has a lot of white bull symbolism hung on him, and I expect his wolf body to die at Jon's rebirth also. The sacrificial bull is very common in mythology, but it's quite the opposite of a devouring bull figure, isn't it? I am not really seeing a devouring type of association with Gerold, though the weirwoods certainly have it. The weirwoods also have fire associations via their leaves looking like a "blaze of flame" and because of the fact that they bestow the fire of the gods on people, like the burning tree of the Grey King myth.  The weirwood as a burning tree strengthen the parallel to Molech, I'd say.  But the weirwoods are not purely sinister and demonic, like Molech - they seem to have another side as well. Thought they are demon trees, of course.     

I think GRRM often attaches multiple symbols with a certain character.  So I think Hightower can serve multiple symbols both the White Bull and the Bull headed god.  I don't think it will be the only time in our stories that a sacrificer becomes the sacrifice.  (Melisandre I'm looking at you)

ETA: the tale of Theseus and the Minotaur does however stand out even more overtly as a parallel to the tower of joy symbolism.  Stark is among seven riders that come to confront the bull headed knight at the tower of joy.  Theseus is among seven Athenian youths that are brought to the Labyrinth for sacrifice.  After the battle, Eddard Stark travels to Starfell to present return the sword Dawn, and Ashara (allegedly) jumps from her tower into the ocean at news of her brother's death.  Theseus returns to Athens forgetting to take down his black sail, and his father, the King of Athens throws himself into the ocean thinking his son had died.  And if you search for the term Labyrinth in the books, the only (one of the) time(s) it is ever used is to describe the streets of Oldtown, the home city of the Hightowers.

[LmL]

11 minutes ago, Frey family reunion said:

I think GRRM often attaches multiple symbols with a certain character.  So I think Hightower can serve multiple symbols both the White Bull and the Bull headed god.  I don't think it will be the only time in our stories that a sacrificer becomes the sacrifice.  (Melisandre I'm looking at you)

ETA: the tale of Theseus and the Minotaur does however stand out even more overtly as a parallel to the tower of joy symbolism.  Stark is among seven riders that come to confront the bull headed knight at the tower of joy.  Theseus is among seven Athenian youths that are brought to the Labyrinth for sacrifice.  After the battle, Eddard Stark travels to Starfell to present return the sword Dawn, and Ashara (allegedly) jumps from her tower into the ocean at news of her brother's death.  Theseus returns to Athens forgetting to take down his black sail, and his father, the King of Athens throws himself into the ocean thinking his son had died.  And if you search for the term Labyrinth in the books, the only time it is ever used is to describe the streets of Oldtown, the seat of the Hightowers.

Winterfell is actually described as a “grey stone labyrinth” which “had grown over the centuries like some monstrous tone tree" in AGOT, but of course we have a devouring weirwood at the center of the labyrinth.  Still, the use of labyrinth at Oldtown works well for your idea of Gerold as a minotaur, no doubt. I also agree that George can be using a bull character to work different metaphors - that's part of his brilliance. And I have noticed the sacrificers becoming the sacrificed, certainly, an it happens often with horned animals and people. 

[Armstark]

I don't know what search mechanism you used FFR but there are quite a few more things described as a labyrinth. See here:

https://asearchoficeandfire.com/?q=labyrinth&scope[]=agot&scope[]=adwd&scope[]=tmk&scope[]=acok&scope[]=twow&scope[]=twoiaf&scope[]=asos&scope[]=thk&scope[]=trp&scope[]=affc&scope[]=tss&scope[]=tpatq

[Frey family reunion]

15 minutes ago, Armstark said:

I don't know what search mechanism you used FFR but there are quite a few more things described as a labyrinth. See here:

https://asearchoficeandfire.com/?q=labyrinth&scope[]=agot&scope[]=adwd&scope[]=tmk&scope[]=acok&scope[]=twow&scope[]=twoiaf&scope[]=asos&scope[]=thk&scope[]=trp&scope[]=affc&scope[]=tss&scope[]=tpatq

You're right I did miss quite a few, (but I still don't count anything from AWOIAF )

[Armstark]

Just uncheck AWOIAF and you won't have to see it

If I look at that list it's only old places (Oldtown, Winterfell, Volantis, Gendel&Gorne's cave) and Littlefinger's ledgers.

But to get back to the topic at hand: Do you think that is why they had to fight at the ToJ, because the KG's wanted to sacrifice the babe and Ned wanted to save it?