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Heresy 192 The Wheel of Time


Black Crow

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So to get back on topic, there is an inversion that seems to be acting like a wheel of time and that is the herbivores becoming carnivores or the general theme of animals that are thought of as being normally as prey actually being predators. 

Valyrians - sheep herders becoming dragons
Dothraki - horse people acting like wolves
Durrandon - Stag people secretly dragons (Orys) secretly now Lions (the wolf mother being killed by a stag) 
Catelyn Tully - fish woman becoming a wolf
Pyke - carnivorous cannibalistic fish 
Wenda the White Fawn - branding people like cattle
Bronn of the Blackwater becoming Lord of Stokeworth
Pate (should be pah-tey- the ground meat paste) of Longleaf aka Longleaf the Lionslayer
not strictly in this vein but Lothor Brune, the Apple eater.

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4 hours ago, Feather Crystal said:

Do you have a link for the White Fawn - Septa - Lemore thread? 

I went back and listened to the episode and the theory was actually conceived by Ygrain and fire eater. So that is a correction. 

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1 hour ago, Pain killer Jane said:

So to get back on topic, there is an inversion that seems to be acting like a wheel of time and that is the herbivores becoming carnivores or the general theme of animals that are thought of as being normally as prey actually being predators. 

Valyrians - sheep herders becoming dragons
Dothraki - horse people acting like wolves
Durrandon - Stag people secretly dragons (Orys) secretly now Lions (the wolf mother being killed by a stag) 
Catelyn Tully - fish woman becoming a wolf
Pyke - carnivorous cannibalistic fish 
Wenda the White Fawn - branding people like cattle
Bronn of the Blackwater becoming Lord of Stokeworth
Pate (should be pah-tey- the ground meat paste) of Longleaf aka Longleaf the Lionslayer
not strictly in this vein but Lothor Brune, the Apple eater.

Most of these line up well with the idea of the moon being a victim which then transforms into a dragon or dragons. The moon is an egg at first, a receiver, a sacrifice. Then it dies, transforms, and becomes a predator. There could obviously be more to it than that, but I thought I would mention it. Nice observation here, I'll have to keep this in the back of my mind.

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7 hours ago, Feather Crystal said:

Robert is Judas in that he betrayed his friend Ned and he's not the man Ned thought he knew.

I think Robert was out of his element, friendless and wanted to return to happier times.  His drinking and womanizing reminds me a bit of Garth Greenhands or Bacchus.  The most telling thing about Robert is this observation by Ned just before Robert is killed by the bastard.

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Robert reached for the flagon and refilled his cup. "You see what she does to me, Ned." The king seated himself, cradling his wine cup. "My loving wife. The mother of my children." The rage was gone from him now; in his eyes Ned saw something sad and scared. "I should not have hit her. That was not … that was not kingly." He stared down at his hands, as if he did not quite know what they were. "I was always strong … no one could stand before me, no one. How do you fight someone if you can't hit them?" Confused, the king shook his head. "Rhaegar … Rhaegar won, damn him. I killed him, Ned, I drove the spike right through that black armor into his black heart, and he died at my feet. They made up songs about it. Yet somehow he still won. He has Lyanna now, and I have her." The king drained his cup.

Beneath everything, Robert is sad, scared.  He doesn't know how to fight the secret intrigues that surround and threaten him.  He doesn't know how to play the game of thrones.  It's beyond him.

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"If it was music you wanted, you should have gotten the singer to champion you." GoT Tyrion VI

"Never believe anything you hear in a song, my lady." Tyrion summoned a serving man to refill their wine cups. aSoS Tyrion VIII

. In the songs, the white knights of the Kingsguard were ever noble, valiant, and true, and yet King Aerys had been murdered by one of them, the handsome boy they now called the Kingslayer, and a second, Ser Barristan the Bold, had gone over to the Usurper. aGoT Dany IV

 

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6 hours ago, ravenous reader said:

Instead of interpreting the inversion to signify Garin's alliance with the dragonlords, one might interpret the success of Jaime's intervention relative to Garin's failure in light of Jaime possibly being a 'secret Targ' vs. Garin who wasn't; therefore, the conclusion that only fire not water can put out fire.  Only the sun/son (or other descendants) of the destructive villain can put things to rights.  By turning Oedipal style on his father Aerys, Jaime's fire combats Aerys' fire in a mini 'Dance of the Dragons' at a micro-level!  Perhaps that's why this time the 'golden cage' is successful, since it harbors a dragon -- Jaime -- the golden armor can be thought of as a golden dragon's scales (alternatively, perhaps he really is a bona fide caged lion in the Lannister menagerie...we can take our pick, for now).  The caged dragon thus turns upon the one who caged him.  Dragons do not do well in captivity and none less so than Jaime who can be deadly in his attempts to extricate himself from the prisons others such as Aerys, Tywin and Cersei have created for him.  Should Jaime turn out to be Aerys's son, Aerys likely impregnated his mother Joanna in order to spite Tywin, leaving a shadow on the family which was ironically projected onto Tyrion, who became the unwitting scapegoat of the family, though in reality the only true Lannister heir. 

Black Crow has actually brought up the concept of ice fighting ice and fire fighting fire in Heresy multiple times, and I can see this with Dany especially. I had posited earlier in the OP that Dany is the Mother of Dragons and the origin of dragons on the new backward rolling wheel of time. If she's meant to be the origin and not Aegon the Conqueror reborn, then maybe her purpose is to remain in Essos and keep the fire side in check, sort of like a shield maiden? Furthermore if her purpose is to take care of the fire side, then maybe this will lead more credence to the theory that Jon is all ice, as in both parents are from the north and descendant of First Men? Although I keep coming back round to the idea that the true definition of him having more of the north in him means that his birth was manipulated, much like Jesus, and a product of (the old) god(s). LynnS wrote some really good stuff about Lyanna, her statue's eyes weeping blood, a Madonna with her rosary crown of roses.

Since the first read through of GOT I thought that Tyrion was Tywin's only true heir, mainly due to his sister Genna's words to Jaime: 

..."Jaime," she said, tugging on his ear, "sweetling, I have known you since you were a babe at Joanna's breast. You smile like Gerion and fight like Tyg, and there's some of Kevan in you, else you would not wear that cloak...but Tyrion is Tywin's son, not you. I said so once to your father's face and he would not speak to me for half a year. Men are such thundering great fools. Even the sort who come along once in a thousand years."

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16 minutes ago, Feather Crystal said:

Black Crow has actually brought up the concept of ice fighting ice and fire fighting fire in Heresy multiple times, and I can see this with Dany especially. I had posited earlier in the OP that Dany is the Mother of Dragons and the origin of dragons on the new backward rolling wheel of time. If she's meant to be the origin and not Aegon the Conqueror reborn, then maybe her purpose is to remain in Essos and keep the fire side in check, sort of like a shield maiden? Furthermore if her purpose is to take care of the fire side, then maybe this will lead more credence to the theory that Jon is all ice, as in both parents are from the north and descendant of First Men? Although I keep coming back round to the idea that the true definition of him having more of the north in him means that his birth was manipulated, much like Jesus, and a product of (the old) god(s). LynnS wrote some really good stuff about Lyanna, her statue's eyes weeping blood, a Madonna with her rosary crown of roses.

Since the first read through of GOT I thought that Tyrion was Tywin's only true heir, mainly due to his sister Genna's words to Jaime: 

..."Jaime," she said, tugging on his ear, "sweetling, I have known you since you were a babe at Joanna's breast. You smile like Gerion and fight like Tyg, and there's some of Kevan in you, else you would not wear that cloak...but Tyrion is Tywin's son, not you. I said so once to your father's face and he would not speak to me for half a year. Men are such thundering great fools. Even the sort who come along once in a thousand years."

I was following this convo earlier; obviously you guys have noticed that "frozen fire" kills Others, right? I believe there is a larger metaphor of "black ice" which encompasses dragonglass AND Valyrian steel - obsidian because it looks like black ice and it is "frozen" fire; V steel because Ned's sword Ice, is nearly black ("black Ice"), and v steel probably kills Others, like obsidian. Jon's dream of being armored in black ice could portend v steel armor, for example. So.. a frozen thing kill sOthers, whether you buy my idea about black ice or whether you its look at dragonglass as frozen fire. 

Now, if frozen fire slays Others, might not burning ice kills dragons? And by burning ice, I mean Dawn, the hypothetical original Ice, were it ever to burn somehow. 

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1 minute ago, LmL said:

I was following this convo earlier; obviously you guys have noticed that "frozen fire" kills Others, right?

I know, but @LynnS has also made the point that the Wall holds the Others back: ice vs. ice.

Also @LmL is there really a difference between 'frozen fire' and 'burning ice'?

Quote

My love is like to ice, and I to fire:
How comes it then that this her cold so great
Is not dissolved through my so hot desire,
But harder grows the more I her entreat?
Or how comes it that my exceeding heat
Is not allayed by her heart-frozen cold,
But that I burn much more in boiling sweat,
And feel my flames augmented manifold?
What more miraculous thing may be told,
That fire, which all things melts, should harden ice,
And ice, which is congeal'd with senseless cold,
Should kindle fire by wonderful device?
Such is the power of love in gentle mind,
That it can alter all the course of kind. 

 

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7 hours ago, ravenous reader said:

My 'bottom-line' interpretation for this sea-see overlapping is that 'green magic' is 'ice magic' is 'water magic' (ice is water).  'Fire magic' is interwoven with all of them -- in fact, I suspect it's the animating factor, the spark that sets the 'green' in motion akin to the spread of wildfire -- although I haven't yet worked out exactly how fire relates to the rest.

This is a new way of looking at the elements, but let me entertain it. Fire is life - without it, we are cold and dead matter. Blood is connected to fire because blood is the thing that is warm in our bodies - that's why the Others smell the hot blood of living things and hate. Blood is linked with fire, and fire with life, as many say. Now, meteors are fire, and they are star-seed as well, so they make a terrific 'fiery see dog life' symbol. Those meteors seem to interact with everything else - with the sea (the sea dragon), with the earth (the burning tree, the burnt green man), and with the ice, if my theory about there being a meteor in the Heart of Winter is true. Certainly, the Others are like ice which is animated by cold fire. And that's my point - I saw this pattern first with the Others... they are ice, thoroughly, but they are burning ice. Ice, but active and consuming like fire. It's like if you freeze fire, you apply some of the 'the cold preserves' mojo to fire and balance it; if you spice up the ice with fire, you get eternal ice beings (the cold preserves), but which consumes everything (fire consumes, and the Others consume all living things). 

We have a bunch of drowned fire - everywhere, in fact. We've discussed it many times in my podcasts, and here as well. SO maybe you are on to something - fire as the central element. I was thinking it was earth and green magic at the center.

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6 minutes ago, ravenous reader said:

I know, but @LynnS has also made the point that the Wall holds the Others back: ice vs. ice.

Also @LmL is there really a difference between 'frozen fire' and 'burning ice'?

 

That's a really awesome poem, very clever, thanks for sharing.  To answer your question, yes, in ASOIAF there might be a difference. I alluded to it in  the post I was typing as you typed the above - frozen fire is applying the preservative powers of cold TO fire, fixing it in place to make obsidian or steel, which have the power of fire, but are not consumed. Burning ice is what the Others are - ice, eternal as ever, but consuming like fire, as the Others consume all living things in their path. Think about the yin yang - the black dot in the white side and vise versa. There is an element of cold to fire and heat to ice, that's what Martin is playing with. But frozen fire will always be on team fire, and burning ice will always be on team ice. 

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1 hour ago, Feather Crystal said:

Black Crow has actually brought up the concept of ice fighting ice and fire fighting fire in Heresy multiple times,

Not fighting, but controlling - in the sense of keeping it in check, just as the Wall appears to.

As I've pointed out before Osha declares that Winter's got no king and therein I suspect is the problem. There's no king so the Wall is or has grown into a substitute, penning it up at the cost of causing the pressure to build up, which is ultimately why it needs to fall.

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3 hours ago, Black Crow said:

Not fighting, but controlling - in the sense of keeping it in check, just as the Wall appears to.

As I've pointed out before Osha declares that Winter's got no king and therein I suspect is the problem. There's no king so the Wall is or has grown into a substitute, penning it up at the cost of causing the pressure to build up, which is ultimately why it needs to fall.

 

I agree with. I will add that probably Winterfell needs also to be destroyed, with the godswood and the hearttree.

And I must quote you in precedent "Heresy thread" : 

I react not very fast, but after one week, I just made the connection with the one you call "Summer king". Hey : Summer is the name of Bran's wolf. Bran, the Crow (he's not only a crow, but that's an essential part of him, who came years before the "wolf-part")

 

Sorry, I have no time to quote and answer all other very interesting posts I have read here, but I keep reading various and passioniate interventions !

 

Edit : to be more precise, if I agree with the fact that a king miss because he was killed by his brother, I was not convinced by "Summer King killed Winter King", but the idea is full of symbolic and paradoxes, and it matches also well in the saga : after all, all Stark children are called "summer childrens", Bran is "Prince of Winterfell", they all remember of winterfell as a summerland (even the snow is a "summer snow"), Jon Snow is born in the far south before he was brought in the north (and I don't speak about the parallelism "Summer Hall/ Winterfell"), and the name Winterfell can have 2 significations : "where the winter stop" or "where the winter begins" (I think personnally that both are true). 

So I thought about this idea of King of Winter and king of Summer, and I arrived to this conclusion : yes, it must be right, a King of Winter were killed, and now it needs to sacrifice a Summer King, to let the spring come back. 

I just think about the "Prince of Pentos"

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@Feather Crystal has asked me to bring up my essay The Puppets of Ice and Fire which she mentioned in OP, and has a strong bearing on the theories she explores here.

It's a fairly long essay and hard to summarise (and I hope you go read it rather than relying on this rough summary) but in short it deals with a whole chain of echoes that connect the Tower of Joy to the ritual at Mirri Maaz Dur's tent, and crop up again and again throughout both the main series and the Dunk & Egg stories. 

As in Feather's observations, my essay shows that the echo events are sometimes inverted. I'll quote this passage here, because I think it's one of the clearer examples:

Quote

The three bloodriders are dark reflections of the three Kingsguards at the ToJ. Cohollo, we are reminded, is an old man. Like "old Ser Gerold Hightower", we have "old Cohollo". Qotho is a fearsome arakhman, as Dayne was a fearsome swordsman: "Qotho danced backward, arakh whirling around his head in a shining blur, flickering out like lightning as the knight came on in a rush. Ser Jorah parried as best he could, but the slashes came so fast that it seemed to Dany that Qotho had four arakhs and as many arms. " Dayne "had a sad smile on his lips", while "Qotho's lips skinned back from his crooked brown teeth in a terrible mockery of a smile." The fight at the ToJ starts when Dayne draws his sword, the fight at the tent when Qotho draws his arakh. Dayne's sword is "alive with light", Qotho's arakh "a shining blur, flickering out like lightning".

This seems like a pretty strong case for inversion. However there's a subtle but important difference to the way I see this and what Feather outlines. I think I can provide a good illustration of the way I see it with another quote from my essay, dealing with an occurrence of the same echo pattern in Brienne's story:

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 At the Whispers Brienne fights Pyg, Shagwell and Timeon. These three can be seen as a twisted low-rent version of the three Kingsguard at the Tower of Joy. Pyg is a rather less majestic beast than the "old bull" Ser Gerold Hightower. Timeon is a Dornishman like Ser Arthur Dayne, but about as far from Dayne's chivalric nature as you can get. Shagwell is a psychotic Jester always making dark jokes, while just about the only thing we know about Ser Oswell Whent is that he was known for "his black humour".

At first it might look like this is a similar inversion, but I don't think that is quite so. The triplet of Chollo, Qotho and Haggo and the triplet of Pyg, Shagwell and Timeon are both quite inverted from the shining example of the three Kingsguards at the tower of joy. However the three Dothraki are bloodriders to the Khal -- they are the Dothraki version of Kingsguards. Pyg, Shagwell and Timeon do not have any such distinction, they're basically just scum. I see this as not so much inversion as distortion.

When we look through this particular repeating pattern, we see a lot of inversions. We also see a lot of things that aren't inverted, or are simply missing, or are indirect parallels. I suspect that this pattern of echoes represents a singular event, probably Dany's hatching of the eggs (the ritual that broke the world), which sent ripples through history. Like the spreading ripples of a stone thrown into water, or the crazing of cracks in a pane of glass, the echoes reflect, bounce, invert, distort and eventually overlap, resolving eventually into chaos.

Therein, I believe, lies the problem. Much as I admire Feather's work in drawing together repetitions and inversions, I think she goes too far in expecting to see inversions when inversions are only one of the possible types of echo. Yes, there are inversions, but the pattern is chaotic and unreliable. If an event does have echoes, should we expect those echoes to be inverted, or parallel, or distorted?

In the OP, Feather discusses the titled rather than named chapters as being ones that contain a pattern of inversion. This would at least provide some basis for creating a foreseeable pattern, but what about the clear echoes that take place in chapters that are not named? Clearly there's nothing as simple as titled chapters containing inversions, named chapters not, that would allow us to treat this as a predictive theory. I just don't think that's what's going on with the titled chapters. That they contain degrees of opposition seems to me more related to the way that the titled chapters -- chapters divorced from the name of the character -- seem to deal with a character going through some a crisis of identity. I don't think these are inversion chapters, I think they are Hamlet chapters. 

From a literary standpoint, I don't see GRRM setting up such a rigid framework. Some authors might structure their story around a game of chess, for example, but even then there would be a division between those authors who would have the moves of an actual game in mind, and those who would be more interested in the idea of a game of chess. It seems to me that GRRM is very much the second type of writer. I do believe has in mind the idea of cycles of history, of events are echoed again and again -- but I don't think he follows any strict and thus predictable pattern for these echoes. 

Quote

I think there are two types of writers, the architects and the gardeners. The architects plan everything ahead of time, like an architect building a house. They know how many rooms are going to be in the house, what kind of roof they're going to have, where the wires are going to run, what kind of plumbing there's going to be. They have the whole thing designed and blueprinted out before they even nail the first board up. The gardeners dig a hole, drop in a seed and water it. They kind of know what seed it is, they know if planted a fantasy seed or mystery seed or whatever. But as the plant comes up and they water it, they don't know how many branches it's going to have, they find out as it grows. And I'm much more a gardener than an architect.

-- GRRM

Taken with this in mind, I think the inversion theory allows for a lot of interesting post facto analysis. Where the trap lies is in trying to use it as a predictive model. To attempt to predict what GRRM has yet to write by inverting what he has already written is matching a pattern that does exist, but it's a pattern that doesn't exist everywhere. How do we decide which elements of the story will be inverted, which will be distorted, which will be paralleled -- and which will simply not be echoed at all? We can't. Only GRRM can, and we can only know in hindsight by seeing the pattern once it's written.

 

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5 hours ago, LmL said:

I was following this convo earlier; obviously you guys have noticed that "frozen fire" kills Others, right? I believe there is a larger metaphor of "black ice" which encompasses dragonglass AND Valyrian steel - obsidian because it looks like black ice and it is "frozen" fire; V steel because Ned's sword Ice, is nearly black ("black Ice"), and v steel probably kills Others, like obsidian. Jon's dream of being armored in black ice could portend v steel armor, for example. So.. a frozen thing kill sOthers, whether you buy my idea about black ice or whether you its look at dragonglass as frozen fire. 

Now, if frozen fire slays Others, might not burning ice kills dragons? And by burning ice, I mean Dawn, the hypothetical original Ice, were it ever to burn somehow. 

I think all readers recall that obsidian is "frozen fire" and that ice "burns". They are two sides of the same coin. IMO Jon's dream about being in black armor and fighting wights is about him being encased in burning ice. He will be ice fighting ice.

5 hours ago, LmL said:

This is a new way of looking at the elements, but let me entertain it. Fire is life - without it, we are cold and dead matter. Blood is connected to fire because blood is the thing that is warm in our bodies - that's why the Others smell the hot blood of living things and hate. Blood is linked with fire, and fire with life, as many say. Now, meteors are fire, and they are star-seed as well, so they make a terrific 'fiery see dog life' symbol. Those meteors seem to interact with everything else - with the sea (the sea dragon), with the earth (the burning tree, the burnt green man), and with the ice, if my theory about there being a meteor in the Heart of Winter is true. Certainly, the Others are like ice which is animated by cold fire. And that's my point - I saw this pattern first with the Others... they are ice, thoroughly, but they are burning ice. Ice, but active and consuming like fire. It's like if you freeze fire, you apply some of the 'the cold preserves' mojo to fire and balance it; if you spice up the ice with fire, you get eternal ice beings (the cold preserves), but which consumes everything (fire consumes, and the Others consume all living things). 

We have a bunch of drowned fire - everywhere, in fact. We've discussed it many times in my podcasts, and here as well. SO maybe you are on to something - fire as the central element. I was thinking it was earth and green magic at the center.

We have drowned ice also north of the Wall. The magic of the Drowned God is everywhere north of the Wall. The sea that Patchface describes is like a sea of magic carried by the cold winds. It's an animating force.

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1 hour ago, GloubieBoulga said:

"Summer Hall/ Winterfell"), and the name Winterfell can have 2 significations : "where the winter stop" or "where the winter begins" (I think personnally that both are true). 

Yes, the duality of meaning. I like it.

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45 minutes ago, Kingmonkey said:

In the OP, Feather discusses the titled rather than named chapters as being ones that contain a pattern of inversion. This would at least provide some basis for creating a foreseeable pattern, but what about the clear echoes that take place in chapters that are not named? Clearly there's nothing as simple as titled chapters containing inversions, named chapters not, that would allow us to treat this as a predictive theory. I just don't think that's what's going on with the titled chapters. That they contain degrees of opposition seems to me more related to the way that the titled chapters -- chapters divorced from the name of the character -- seem to deal with a character going through some a crisis of identity. I don't think these are inversion chapters, I think they are Hamlet chapters. 

From a literary standpoint, I don't see GRRM setting up such a rigid framework. Some authors might structure their story around a game of chess, for example, but even then there would be a division between those authors who would have the moves of an actual game in mind, and those who would be more interested in the idea of a game of chess. It seems to me that GRRM is very much the second type of writer. I do believe has in mind the idea of cycles of history, of events are echoed again and again -- but I don't think he follows any strict and thus predictable pattern for these echoes. 

Thank you for sharing your echoes of the fight at the tower of joy. I still have the opinion that all of them may be echoes of an original fight not mentioned in the story, and connected to the forging of the third sword that led to the breaking of the world.

I understand that there are echoes and inversions outside the titled chapters. There are many fascinating examples that others have brought into this thread, but I still believe the titled chapters are meant to be significant. They are the Jabberwocky for us to decipher. IMO the echoes, parallels, and inversions early on in the first three books were our education...we were being instructed on how to learn the "song". Pain Killer Jane said this upthread:

...also called dreaming track, is one of the paths across the land (or sometimes the sky) which mark the route followed by localised 'creator-beings' during the Dreamtime......

A knowledgeable person is able to navigate across the land by repeating the words of the song, which describe the location of landmarks, waterholes, and other natural phenomena. In some cases, the paths of the creator-beings are said to be evident from their marks, or petrosomatoglyphs, on the land, such as large depressions in the land which are said to be their footprints.

By singing the songs in the appropriate sequence, indigenous people could navigate vast distances, often travelling through the deserts of Australia's interior.

Since a songline can span the lands of several different language groups, different parts of the song are said to be in those different languages. Languages are not a barrier because the melodic contour of the song describes the nature of the land over which the song passes. The rhythm is what is crucial to understanding the song. Listening to the song of the land is the same as walking on this songline and observing the land.

What Pain Killer Jane posted about using a song to navigate isn't anything I've read before, but it is a clarification of exactly what has been rattling and bouncing around in my brain all these months that I have been working on this theory. When I read this I went "YES!" This is what I've been thinking! I just didn't know how to explain it properly.

The first three books were our primers...the books that taught us "the song"...the inversion song, so when we got to A Feast For Crows chapter one The Prophet we were prepared to navigate the land by repeating the words of the song. The rhythm is what is crucial to understanding the song. I'm not quite fluent, but I think I'm picking up on it.

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1 hour ago, GloubieBoulga said:

the name Winterfell can have 2 significations : "where the winter stop" or "where the winter begins" (I think personnally that both are true). 

"Fell" also means terrible/evil (same derivation as felon). A fell winter would be a particularly terrible winter. 

More directly, "fell" is a not uncommon middle English place-name element, indicating a hill or upland, from the old Norse "fjall". Familiarity with place names in Viking-settled northern England will make "fell" as a place-name element very familiar. GRRM was certainly going from this, and having a little fun with the various additional connotations that the word evokes.  

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6 hours ago, LmL said:

That's a really awesome poem, very clever, thanks for sharing.  To answer your question, yes, in ASOIAF there might be a difference. I alluded to it in  the post I was typing as you typed the above - frozen fire is applying the preservative powers of cold TO fire, fixing it in place to make obsidian or steel, which have the power of fire, but are not consumed. Burning ice is what the Others are - ice, eternal as ever, but consuming like fire, as the Others consume all living things in their path. Think about the yin yang - the black dot in the white side and vise versa. There is an element of cold to fire and heat to ice, that's what Martin is playing with. But frozen fire will always be on team fire, and burning ice will always be on team ice. 

Fighting fire with fire and ice with ice was really a question about the Wall itself rather than obsidian and frozen fire.  The concept being that to fight a 'wild' fire, a fire break is made and so the Wall functions as a 'fire break' or fighting ice with ice.

We're not far apart on the ideas about how dragonglass is used as a weapon; it's magical properties or that fire is essential to the equation.  The song of earth has to encompass the earth's fiery heart.  The problems begin when sorcery is used to unbalance the natural magic of the world.  The consequences of over-reaching described here by Moqorro:

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A Dance with Dragons - Tyrion VIII

"Fourteen or fourteen thousand. What man dares count them? It is not wise for mortals to look too deeply at those fires, my friend. Those are the fires of god's own wrath, and no human flame can match them. We are small creatures, men."
 
"Some smaller than others." Valyria. It was written that on the day of Doom every hill for five hundred miles had split asunder to fill the air with ash and smoke and fire, blazes so hot and hungry that even the dragons in the sky were engulfed and consumed. Great rents had opened in the earth, swallowing palaces, temples, entire towns. Lakes boiled or turned to acid, mountains burst, fiery fountains spewed molten rock a thousand feet into the air, red clouds rained down dragonglass and the black blood of demons, and to the north the ground splintered and collapsed and fell in on itself and an angry sea came rushing in. The proudest city in all the world was gone in an instant, its fabled empire vanished in a day, the Lands of the Long Summer scorched and drowned and blighted.

The sword without a hilt; something to which the Horned Lord also gives warning:

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It was Dalla who answered him, Dalla great with child, lying on her pile of furs beside the brazier. "We free folk know things you kneelers have forgotten. Sometimes the short road is not the safest, Jon Snow. The Horned Lord once said that sorcery is a sword without a hilt. There is no safe way to grasp it."  SoS Jon X

"Yes." A sword without a hilt, with no safe way to hold it. But Melisandre had the right of it. Even a sword without a hilt is better than an empty hand when foes are all around you.  DwD Jon VIII

I think you have some interesting insights on the nature of dragonglass as a magical weapon and the fiery greenseer.  I don't disagree.  The only place where we diverge is on the necessity for a fire and ice bloodline mix for Jon to be transformed by fire.  I think what's important is the green bloodline or the ability to be a greenseer.  That doesn't come from fire and ice; the swords without a hilt.  It looks to me like anyone can be transformed by fire or ice but not anyone can be a greenseer.

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1 hour ago, Feather Crystal said:

I understand that there are echoes and inversions outside the titled chapters. There are many fascinating examples that others have brought into this thread, but I still believe the titled chapters are meant to be significant. They are the Jabberwocky for us to decipher.

Likewise I don't doubt that there are inversion inside the titled chapters. However I'm not convinced of the notion that inversion is a defining characteristic of these chapters. The titles take the place of names, and that seems to be a strong indication that what we are dealing with is a question of identity. The chapter titles replace a clear indicator of the person -- their name -- with a descriptive indicator of the role that person plays.

Titled chapters seem to convey the idea that the PoV is undergoing some transformative questioning of their identity. Thus Barristan goes from Kingsguard to Queensguard, starts to question his own simplicity as a soldier who can unthinkingly follow orders in The Broken Knight, realises that he must make important and difficult decisions rather than just blindly guard kings as he had before in the Kingbreaker, and is transformed into a true decision maker as The Queen's Hand. Theon starts of as Reek, but then becomes the joke Prince in Winterfell, is forced to recognise that his life has turned into a desperation of trying to survive by pleasing others in as a Turncloak and eventually sees the ghost of his former self in A Ghost in Winterfell before he can renew himself to become Theon again.

I haven't gone through every titled chapter to demonstrate that this pattern holds, but this isn't a theory I've looked at too closely, it's just the interpretation I've assumed on reading. If I was to do a thread about it, I'd want to provide a justification for each titled chapter. The basic principle that must hold is that every titled chapter must have something demonstrably in common. Likewise I think you have to show a strong indication of inversion can be found in every titled chapter as a foundation argument for your thesis. OP proposes, but doesn't really show, that this pattern is there. 

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