cgrav Posted December 15, 2016 Share Posted December 15, 2016 I was thinking about the difference between black and red blood in the context of the GEOTD essay, black blood representing a sort of burnt and corrupted nature. Red blood seems normal, but set against a "corrupted" blood, red would be the uncorrupted. And if black blood indicates an unwilling or unnatural sort of sacrifice, then red blood would be a willing sacrifice. On that assumption, any Green Men sacrifices would have been willing, hence the weirwoods having red "blood". And if we think the Green Men, Weirwoods, and Others are distantly related, then it could explain Craster, because the Others, sharing an origin with the weirwoods, require a willing sacrifice, and Craster is the only person we've met who gives his blood (kin) willingly to the Others. The people they murder outright are corrupted, with the blood blackened in their extremities, and so they need someone who gives up their or their kin's life willingly in order to sustain or establish sentience. Regardless of what/who turns out to have made the first weirwood, I think the Black Gate is an under-discussed mystery, and based on the present discussion, I think it could be tied into the Others. The Wall is almost just a gigantic, highly sedentary Other. The Others are sentient creatures made of magical ice who have bones resembling weirwood... the Wall is made of magical ice and has a sentient weirwood growing right below it, maybe into it? And the Wall is anthropomorphized constantly, as if it had a will of its own. The Others are noted as being like shadows, and the Wall's shadow is mentioned frequently. Our knowledge that the Wall keeps out the Others leads us to believe that it's an oppositional magic, rather than an overpowering form of the same kind. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LmL Posted December 15, 2016 Author Share Posted December 15, 2016 12 hours ago, ravenous reader said: And I shall bask in the reflected glow of your green brilliance! I still should probably send you a draft before I put it out.. I'll get busy on the one again in January most like. 12 hours ago, ravenous reader said: I believe the heart of winter is located at Winterfell, with the heart tree as its 'bullseye' to be precise. It sits/grows over a major tectonic rift -- another word for rift is 'seam' which as it so happens is one of the meanings of 'fell' as in 'Winter-fell' -- as evidenced by the subterranean volcanic activity we can infer serving to heat the water which creates the hot springs, without which life in the castle could not be sustained. Winterfell is compared to a body -- both the body of a tree and the body of a man, which is apt considering the tree houses a man (the greenseer). Although it's an icy-cold body (analagous to that in @LmL's ice moon hypothesis), the core of the body -- i.e. its heart -- is an organ of fire. GRRM even uses words applicable to human anatomy to hint at this heart, e.g. referring to the 'chambers' (like the chambers of a heart) and the 'walls' (like the walls of vessels such as arteries and veins). The pumping activity of the heart is conveyed by adjectives such as 'rushed,' 'driving,' 'filling,' etc. Additionally, he adds it's 'like blood through a man's body' driving home that this is a living circulatory system! Just wanted to agree and say that I had noticed this too, and there's a comparison drawn between the "warm blooded" walls of Winterfell and the comparatively cold walls of Castle Black. I mention it in part 3 12 hours ago, ravenous reader said: Ned laughs -- and I silently laugh with him -- because he recognises the paradox...Ice is driven by its fiery core (just like the moon meteor topographical symbolism) Since this is Bran's tree -- and Bran's 'soul' or 'sol' (Latin for sun) inhabits the tree -- we can say that the heart of winter -- winter's sun, or the 'son of Winterfell' -- is Bran himself. Cool, that's another way of arriving at the same conclusion aboutta winter having something fiery at its core. It also explains Bran's summer symbolism. Remember how you were talking about Bran as a sun that went underground and I told you that exact idea manifests in world mythology with the idea of a night sun? And that George has made specific reference to it by talking about the cave of night where the sun goes to hide? We were wondering î that concept overlaps with that of the "Sun of Winter" / Karstark sigil stuff. Was also talking about this with @sweetsunray. So long at your analysis here, I'don't have to say yes. Bran is the winter sun / son, and I like the play on soul / sol. 12 hours ago, ravenous reader said: The heart is the underground core of the matter -- like the small black dot in the yang and the small white dot in the yin. So, we can say that the Heart of Winter is the King of Summer (Bran); the Heart of Summer is the King of Winter (Jon). Thus, the heart or sun remains dormant, but beating, waiting for its time to rise in the appropriate season. The 'rising' is accompanied by sacrifice. Paradoxically -- yes, it's a paradox -- Bran will bring the Dawn -- the sunrise -- by sacrificing himself. Could see that. 12 hours ago, ravenous reader said: Remember that the heart tree is Winterfell, and Winterfell is likened to a giant sprawling stone monster of a tree. Therefore, the crypt is its substrate and can be considered magically equivalent. Some other quotes: First note the evocative image of Bran 'hanging' in the wicker basket -- a reiteration of Odin hanging himself on the tree for the acquisition of higher knowledge. It's also related to suspending himself over the abyss -- or flying in space (although I admit the latter association is tenuous, being born of my fervent imagination in this respect!) The 'dark red leaves brushing against his face' is a visual expression of Bran being 'kissed by fire' (the flame-red weirwood leaves licking at his face like fire) -- in other words burnt as part of his flying date with destiny. Great catch on Bran hanging from the wicker basket, that's cool. King of Winter Wicker Man symbolism mixed with Odin hanging symbolism. ☺ 12 hours ago, ravenous reader said: Winterfell is a sea of chaos following being burnt and sacked by Ramsay and co. Ironically, this excess of fire ushers in the snow storm which takes over in force. It's my contention that Bran having taken his seat in the heart tree is greenseer-orchestrating the elements. Ultimately, he -- above Theon or any other -- is the Ghost in Winterfell and true Prince of the Green. What this means is that there is a sea of fire (Bolton-born) which ushers in a sea of ice (Stark-born) being generated by the heart of fire in the center (also Stark-born). The fire is generating the ice magic! Moreover, the fire acts as a firebreak, in @LynnS's sense of 'like pushing back against like': The power of the green wood is as strong as fire because it is fire! The reason the Winterfell godswood is able to defeat the encroaching fire is because being fire itself it has been able to preserve life there -- which now is able to defeat the flames! ETA: I see I've erred: Ned didn't laugh, and Catelyn failed to recognise the paradox -- So I guess I'm laughing on my own! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lady Fishbiscuit Posted December 15, 2016 Share Posted December 15, 2016 Oh @LmL you're really spoiling us here! A 3-parter!! Really enjoying so far. I am beyond keen to learn more about the green men on the isle of faces. It's so high up my wish list for the remaining books! I hadn't actually considered they could be a separate species, but in a world where we've seen CotF and giants and heard rumours of other not-quite-human type species, there's no reason why they couldn't be. There's no mention of any green women or children, so I wonder if they have an extended life like the COTF, The warlocks and Bloodraven. Having said that, I know men can be a cover all term, like First Men. In my head, they seemed more like a kind of secluded religious order. I also wonder why nobody ever seems to go and investigate the isle, with humans being as curious as they are! Maybe it's like the quiet isle or the queenscrown tower that can only be accessed by a secret specific route. But I digress... Lots of great ideas to consider and I think you're absolutely spot on about Jon having to be undead + skinchanger to be able to take on what's coming. I can't see it being ice magic alone, but possibly Jon's specific bloodline makes magic resurrection via multiple means possible. This may have been the same for the original lasthero. I have always felt that his resurrection would be temporary though and that he will ultimately have to sacrifice himself for the greater good. Winter can't go on forever and must ultimately die. I like that you've done some of the essay almost as a discussion with yourself around various theories and ideas in there. No absolutes, just plenty of ideas and observations with a plethora ofevidence to back them up. As always, I learned a bit more about various mythologies along the way too! Every day is a school day My brain, as always, went off on a few tangents! First of all, I got to thinking about The LAST Hero along with the LAST greenseer (and the LAST hearth? ). It implies the end of something, not just the person, but a way of life. But at the same time, we have another... Jon may be the 'next last hero' and Bran seems to be the 'next last greenseer'. Nothing ever disappears completely, it's all fated to come around again. I was also really taken with the 'false' resurrections, a number of which involve Renly - Renly looking to Ned like a young Robert, Garlan as a resurrected Renly / Renly's shade, Gendry as resurrected Renly (Brianne thinks she's seen a ghost). Very apt with his Summer / Green King symbolism. I wondered is George telling us anything here with these false resurrections, which then made me wonder if there is any connection (symbolically) with the year of the False Spring - where winter has been defeated (seemingly) and the cycle was moving back to summer but the winter pulls it back again. This person is not returned from the dead. Summer hasn't really defeated winter (yet) Conversely, We also have a few instances of people returning after a false death - they are believed to be dead, sometimes they pretend to to be or swap places with someone else, but return - Ramsay Snow (who swapped with Reek), Bran & Rickon (swapped with Miller's boys), The Hound, JonCon, (f)Aegon, Arya. Many of these have death/winter symbolism too, which may be a connection to an unexpectedly extended winter like the long night. Possibly reaching a bit but I couldn't shake the notion so had to write it down! Really looking forward to Part 3! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GloubieBoulga Posted December 15, 2016 Share Posted December 15, 2016 I don't know if it can bring something to your theory. Sometimes, I feel difficult to follow your idea, because you are going very far (essentialy with all the "cosmic" purpose, which is for me only symbolic of human heart inner conflicts ^^), but funnily, despite the fact that the approach are a bit different, we arrive at same point : Bran's sacrifice. So, I would study here two abstracts, and give some possible interpretations (of facts only) 1. Daenerys' vision in HotU (ACOK), this one especially : Quote Farther on she came upon a feast of corpses. Savagely slaughtered, the feasters lay strewn across overturned chairs and hacked trestle tables, asprawl in pools of congealing blood. Some had lost limbs, even heads. Severed hands clutched bloody cups, wooden spoons, roast fowl, heels of bread. In a throne above them sat a dead man with the head of a wolf. He wore an iron crown and held a leg of lamb in one hand as a king might hold a scepter, and his eyes followed Dany with mute appeal. I have seen two current interpretations for this : a foreshadow for Red Wedding, and a mystical vision of a Feast of Death who reprensent the feast at Winterfell after harvest (ACOK), when Bran preside as "prince of Winterfell". This second had my preference since I reported my attention to the two details I noted : - "a dead man with a head of a wolf" : no doubt, it is a Stark. As he sit on a throne, he can't be Robb at Red Wedding, where Lord Walder was on the lordish throne. The crown too isn't the same. This dead man can't be Bran the broken, who is a boy, even if he says he is a man grown (heroes know nothing, it is known, I think !). So who is that man ? The iron crown must be a clue : this isn't the official crown of the North, bronze circle with nine iron spikes. This official crown could represent the most important house of the north who were defeated and token under Stark's power in ancient times. So the sincle iron circle could indicate that the dead king with a head of a wolf is an ancient Stark. - (he) held a leg of lamb in one hand as a king might hold a scepter" : here is the third instrument who show that the man is the king = throne, crown and scepter. But the scepter is a lamb's leg. Why then ? And why the massacre all around ? Why blood and port of bodies in the cups and plates ? As if the convives were also the food of this bloody feast ? Lamb is the perfect animal for sacrifices. In another thread, @sweetsunray had studied all the ambiguities with ram, lamb and Craster's son in the Jon's chapter (ACOK) when the NW stop at Craster's house. Craster's cannibalism was also strongly suggested. In ADWD, before Daenerys discovers that the human victim of Drogon is a little girl (Hazzea), all people think about another lamb. So, I think this lamb's scepter recall the sacrifice of a scapegoat. And surely a very innocent scapegoat, and instead this sacrifice brought the blessign of the gods, it put a very heavy curse on the Stark; curse who became always heavier with time and could conduct to a violent and bloody ending of the Stark family (Dany !!! Stop the curse !!!), symbolized here with the massacre. Theon's vision of a Feast of Dead at Winterfell, with Robb who arrives with his wolf (ACOK), recalls this scene. This is not exactly the same, but suggests that for the Starks (and the realm) isn't coming, but is already here. As a boy, Robb represent the future, and when the young generation die, this is the future who dies. If the scapegoat sacrifice wasn't favorable, it significate also that the power of the wolf was illegitimate from the beginning. 2. And now, who could be the lamb ? let's see another scene, Jon II AGOT, when Jon visit Bran before he goes to the Wall, and let's pay attention to Catelyn's words : Quote He crossed the room, keeping the bed between them, and looked down on Bran where he lay. She was holding one of his hands. It looked like a claw. This was not the Bran he remembered. The flesh had all gone from him. His skin stretched tight over bones like sticks. Under the blanket, his legs bent in ways that madeJon sick. His eyes were sunken deep into black pits; open, but they saw nothing. The fall had shrunken him somehow. He looked half a leaf, as if the first strong wind would carry him off to his grave. Yet under the frail cage of those shattered ribs, his chest rose and fell with each shallow breath. "Bran," he said, "I'm sorry I didn't come before. I was afraid." He could feel the tears rolling down his cheeks. Jon no longer cared. "Don't die, Bran. Please. We're all waiting for you to wake up. Me and Robb and the girls, everyone …" Lady Stark was watching. She had not raised a cry. Jon took that for acceptance. Outside the window, the direwolf howled again. The wolf that Bran had not had time to name. "I have to go now,"Jon said. "Uncle Benjen is waiting. I'm to go north to the Wall. We have to leave today, before the snows come." He remembered how excited Bran had been at the prospect of the journey. It was more than he could bear, the thought of leaving him behind like this. Jon brushed away his tears, leaned over, and kissed his brother lightly on the lips. "I wanted him to stay here with me," Lady Stark said softly. Jonwatchedher,wary. She was not even looking at him. She was talking to him, but for a part of her, it was as though he were not even in the room. "I prayed for it," she said dully. "He was my special boy. I went to the sept and prayed seven times to the seven faces of god that Ned would change his mind and leave him here with me. Sometimes prayers are answered." Jondidnot know what to say. "It wasn't your fault," he managed after an awkward silence. Her eyes found him. They were full of poison. "I need none of your absolution, bastard." Jon lowered his eyes. She was cradling one of Bran's hands. He took the other, squeezed it. Fingers like the bones of birds. "Good-bye," he said. He was at the door when she called out to him. "Jon," she said. He should have kept going, but she had never called him by his name before. He turned to find her looking at his face, as if she were seeing it for the first time. "Yes?" he said. "It should have been you," she told him. Then she turned back to Bran and began to weep, her whole body shaking with the sobs. Jon had never seen her cry before. - At first, we see Bran like a broken piece of wood, very fragile. The bones look like claws, but also like a cage and inside the cage, the little bird is living. And the wolf is calling it. The mother don't want her little bird die : instead, she want the bastard dies. I think we have here our old lamb, a Stark bastard who died sacrificed instead a bird. At this moment, Catelyn seems to be far from the present scene : she's here and not here at the same time, as is she were inspired by someone else/some "other soul". Catelyn is ordinary very receptive and sensitive as a character. This is interessant that in the saga, all bastard or considered-as-bastard play the part of a scapegoat : Jon is accused by Janos Slynt and Thorne for Mormont's death; Tyrion for Joffrey; Theon (rejected by his father and the northmen) for Winterfell Bran and Rickon; and surely Ramsay is a scapegoat for his father Roose; Craster is a criminal but he is innocent from Mormont's death. During the Red Wedding, Catelyn findsand kills the most innocent character of the scene, Jinglebell, by slashing his throat, like a sacrifice - ADWD, Bran III : Quote Then, as he watched, a bearded man forced a captive down onto his knees before the heart tree. A white-haired woman stepped toward them through a drift of dark red leaves, a bronze sickle in her hand. "No," said Bran, "no, don't," but they could not hear him, no more than his father had. The woman grabbed the captive by the hair, hooked the sickle round his throat, and slashed. And through the mist of centuries the broken boy could only watch as the man's feet drummed against the earth … but as his life flowed out of him in a red tide, Brandon Stark could taste the blood. Could we have here our scapegoat's sacrifice ? The one who cursed the Stark ? There is another sacrifice to a weirwood in the saga : AFFC, Brienne at the Whispers : she slashes Shagwell's throat when they are burrying Dick. Here, Shagwell is the real guilty. The comparison with the ancient sacrifice's scene suggests, imo, that this ancient sacrifice wasn't "true justice" who could appease the dead's spirit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bluetiger Posted December 15, 2016 Share Posted December 15, 2016 I think that the Undying of Qarth and warlocks are some corrupted for of Green Men/human greenseers: We know that there were or still are Children of the Forrest (or their close kin)- Ifequevron and Giants (Jhogowin) is Essos. Quote The God-Kings of Ib, before their fall, did succeed in conquering and colonizing a huge swathe of northern Essos immediately south of Ib itself, a densely wooded region that had formerly been the home of a small, shy forest folk. Some say that the Ibbenese extinguished this gentle race, whilst others believe they went into hiding in the deeper woods or fled to other lands. The Dothraki still call the great forest along the northern coast the Kingdom of the Ifequevron, the name by which they knew the vanished forest-dwellers. The fabled Sea Snake, Corlys Velaryon, Lord of the Tides, was the first Westerosi to visit these woods. After his return from the Thousand Islands, he wrote of carved trees, haunted grottoes, and strange silences. A later traveler, the merchant-adventurer Bryan of Oldtown, captain of the cog Spearshaker, provided an account of his own journey across the Shivering Sea. He reported that the Dothraki name for the lost people meant "those who walk in the woods." None of the Ibbenese that Bryan of Oldtown met could say they had ever seen a woods walker, but claimed that the little people blessed a household that left offerings of leaf and stone and water overnight. - these COTF are seeked by Bryan (Bran) of Oldtown, just like our Bran seeks them, and 'Bryan of Oldtown' is similar to Bran the Builder, who supposedly built the Hightower: Quote In legend, Brandon the Builder had used giants to help raise Winterfell, but Jon did not want to confuse the issue. "Men can build a lot higher than this. In Oldtown there's a tower taller than the Wall." He could tell she did not believe him. If I could show her Winterfell . . . give her a flower from the glass gardens, feast her in the Great Hall, and show her the stone kings on their thrones. We could bathe in the hot pools, and love beneath the heart tree while the old gods watched over us. - that last line - little people blessed a household that left offerings of leaf and stone and water overnight - sounds like 'helpful elves' from Norse mythology, so we have another COTF connection - carved trees and skinchanging references: Quote All that ended two hundred years ago with the coming of the Dothraki. The horselords had hitherto shunned the forests of the northern coasts; some say this was because of their reverence for the vanished wood walkers, others because they feared their powers. Whatever the truth, the Dothraki did not fear the men of Ib. Khal after khal began to make incursions into Ibbenese territories, overrunning the farms and fields and holdfasts of the hairy men with fire and steel, putting the males to the sword whilst carrying off their wives into slavery. Wood walkers might evoke Others, but I think it's more likely here it means COTF... Quote The Fisher Queens were wise and benevolent and favored of the gods, we are told, and kings and lords and wise men sought the floating palace for their counsel. Beyond their domains, however, other peoples rose and fell and fought, struggling for a place in the sun. Some maesters believe that the First Men originated here before beginning the long westward migration that took them across the Arm of Dorne to Westeros. The Andals, too, may have arisen in the fertile fields south of the Silver Sea. Tales are told of the Hairy Men, a race of shaggy savage warriors, who rode to battle on unicorns. Though larger than the Ibbenese of the present, they may well have been their forebears. We hear as well of the lost city Lyber, where acolytes of a spider goddess and a serpent god fought an endless, bloody war. East of them stood the kingdoms of the centaurs, half man and half horse. In the southeast the proud city-states of the Qaathi arose; in the forests to the north, along the shores of the Shivering Sea, were the domains of the woodswalkers, a diminutive folk whom many maesters believe to have been kin to the children of the forest; between them could be found the hill kingdoms of the Cymmeri, the long-legged Gipps with their wicker shields and lime-stiffened hair, and the brown-skinned palehaired Zoqora, who rode to war in chariots. Most of these peoples are gone now, their cities burned and buried, their gods and heroes all but forgotten. Of the Qaathi cities, only Qarth remains, dreaming of past glories beside the jealously guarded Jade Gates, which link the Summer and Jade seas. The others were extinguished, driven into exile, or conquered and assimilated by the people who succeeded them. So, Essos, especially eastern, has or had it's own COTF or very similar race... so probably humans of that continent, just like their Westerosi counterparts, also rearned greensight and warging magic. The legend about the breaking of the moon comes from Qarth - so I imagine they at least once had a very good knowledge about these events - of all cultures their version gives the actual reason for the Long Night - so mayhaps the proto-Undying were directly responsible for it. Quote Dany took the warlock's words well salted, but the magnificence of the great city was not to be denied. Three thick walls encircled Qarth, elaborately carved. The outer was red sandstone, thirty feet high and decorated with animals: snakes slithering, kites flying, fish swimming, intermingled with wolves of the red waste and striped zorses and monstrous elephants. The middle wall, forty feet high, was grey granite alive with scenes of war: the clash of sword and shield and spear, arrows in flight, heroes at battle and babes being butchered, pyres of the dead. The innermost wall was fifty feet of black marble, with carvings that made Dany blush until she told herself that she was being a fool. She was no maid; if she could look on the grey wall's scenes of slaughter, why should she avert her eyes from the sight of men and women giving pleasure to one another? So, once Qarth was fertile and rich in wildlife, just like Westeros... the wolves are mentioned, hinting at warging. But it there was some cataclysm, that turned all lands near it into Waste... Note that Qarth is called 'the entre of the world' and it's the very first place where Dany's dragons come... just like the moon meteor dragons would hit the place right below greenseer's location - I imagine it's much easier to steer sth into the moon when the moon is right above you and you can actually see it... btw, how long it'd take for the moonmeteros to hit Planetos? Hours? Days? It'd be interesting to know, as we could get assumption where the moonbreaker greenseers lived - Asshai and Stygai have to be the most badly affected places... The House of the Undying has a grove surrounding it: Quote In this city of splendors, Dany had expected the House of the Undying Ones to be the most splendid of all, but she emerged from her palanquin to behold a grey and ancient ruin. Long and low, without towers or windows, it coiled like a stone serpent through a grove of black-barked trees whose inky blue leaves made the stuff of the sorcerous drink the Qartheen called shade of the evening. No other buildings stood near. Black tiles covered the palace roof, many fallen or broken; the mortar between the stones was dry and crumbling. She understood now why Xaro Xhoan Daxos called it the Palace of Dust. Even Drogon seemed disquieted by the sight of it. The black dragon hissed, smoke seeping out between his sharp teeth. With trees that seem to be a corrupted version of the weirwoods, just like the shade of the evening is a corrupted version (red vs 'blue' blood?) of weirwood paste. Quote Through the indigo murk, she could make out the wizened features of the Undying One to her right, an old old man, wrinkled and hairless. His flesh was a ripe violet-blue, his lips and nails bluer still, so dark they were almost black. Even the whites of his eyes were blue. They stared unseeing at the ancient woman on the opposite side of the table, whose gown of pale silk had rotted on her body. One withered breast was left bare in the Qartheen manner, to show a pointed blue nipple hard as leather. She is not breathing. Dany listened to the silence. None of them are breathing, and they do not move, and those eyes see nothing. Could it be that the Undying Ones were dead? They are similar to Bloodraven, but in far worse state... is it simply because they have been 'undead' for millenia, or because they use corrupted technology to achive that state? Here the Undying Ones seem to belive that they created dragons: Quote She took a step forward. But then Drogon leapt from her shoulder. He flew to the top of the ebony-and-weirwood door, perched there, and began to bite at the carved wood. "A willful beast," laughed a handsome young man. "Shall we teach you the secret speech of dragonkind? Come, come." Doubt seized her. The great door was so heavy it took all of Dany's strength to budge it, but finally it began to move. Behind was another door, hidden. It was old grey wood, splintery and plain . . . but it stood to the right of the door through which she'd entered. The wizards were beckoning her with voices sweeter than song. She ran from them, Drogon flying back down to her. Through the narrow door she passed, into a chamber awash in gloom. So at least they belive they were the ones to crack the moon and bring dragons. And here is another warlocks - greenseer connection: Quote Finally the stair opened. To her right, a set of wide wooden doors had been thrown open. They were fashioned of ebony and weirwood, the black and white grains swirling and twisting in strange interwoven patterns. They were very beautiful, yet somehow frightening. The blood of the dragon must not be afraid. Dany said a quick prayer, begging the Warrior for courage and the Dothraki horse god for strength. She made herself walk forward. Beyond the doors was a great hall and a splendor of wizards. Some wore sumptuous robes of ermine, ruby velvet, and cloth of gold. Others fancied elaborate armor studded with gemstones, or tall pointed hats speckled with stars. There were women among them, dressed in gowns of surpassing loveliness. Shafts of sunlight slanted through windows of stained glass, and the air was alive with the most beautiful music she had ever heard. Actually, one that Polish forums someone wrote quite interesting theory about the origin of dragons, origin of the maesters, mazemakers and Red Hands of Braavos... If I find time this evening, I'll send you the main points. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LmL Posted December 15, 2016 Author Share Posted December 15, 2016 14 hours ago, cgrav said: I was thinking about the difference between black and red blood in the context of the GEOTD essay, black blood representing a sort of burnt and corrupted nature. Red blood seems normal, but set against a "corrupted" blood, red would be the uncorrupted. And if black blood indicates an unwilling or unnatural sort of sacrifice, then red blood would be a willing sacrifice. On that assumption, any Green Men sacrifices would have been willing, hence the weirwoods having red "blood". And if we think the Green Men, Weirwoods, and Others are distantly related, then it could explain Craster, because the Others, sharing an origin with the weirwoods, require a willing sacrifice, and Craster is the only person we've met who gives his blood (kin) willingly to the Others. The people they murder outright are corrupted, with the blood blackened in their extremities, and so they need someone who gives up their or their kin's life willingly in order to sustain or establish sentience. Regardless of what/who turns out to have made the first weirwood, I think the Black Gate is an under-discussed mystery, and based on the present discussion, I think it could be tied into the Others. The Wall is almost just a gigantic, highly sedentary Other. The Others are sentient creatures made of magical ice who have bones resembling weirwood... the Wall is made of magical ice and has a sentient weirwood growing right below it, maybe into it? And the Wall is anthropomorphized constantly, as if it had a will of its own. The Others are noted as being like shadows, and the Wall's shadow is mentioned frequently. Our knowledge that the Wall keeps out the Others leads us to believe that it's an oppositional magic, rather than an overpowering form of the same kind. I totally agree that the black gate is quite the mystery. We've never seen any other weirwood faces that can move like that or talk... It's definitely implying that the line between trees and people may be blurrier than we have been told. Season 6 spoilers: In a way, the black gate is kind of like Hodor's ancestor. The original Hold the Door... he was holding the door and then froze in place, became the door. Lol. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LmL Posted December 15, 2016 Author Share Posted December 15, 2016 53 minutes ago, Blue Tiger said: I think that the Undying of Qarth and warlocks are some corrupted for of Green Men/human greenseers: We know that there were or still are Children of the Forrest (or their close kin)- Ifequevron and Giants (Jhogowin) is Essos. - these COTF are seeked by Bryan (Bran) of Oldtown, just like our Bran seeks them, and 'Bryan of Oldtown' is similar to Bran the Builder, who supposedly built the Hightower: - that last line - little people blessed a household that left offerings of leaf and stone and water overnight - sounds like 'helpful elves' from Norse mythology, so we have another COTF connection - carved trees and skinchanging references: Wood walkers might evoke Others, but I think it's more likely here it means COTF... So, Essos, especially eastern, has or had it's own COTF or very similar race... so probably humans of that continent, just like their Westerosi counterparts, also rearned greensight and warging magic. The legend about the breaking of the moon comes from Qarth - so I imagine they at least once had a very good knowledge about these events - of all cultures their version gives the actual reason for the Long Night - so mayhaps the proto-Undying were directly responsible for it. So, once Qarth was fertile and rich in wildlife, just like Westeros... the wolves are mentioned, hinting at warging. But it there was some cataclysm, that turned all lands near it into Waste... Note that Qarth is called 'the entre of the world' and it's the very first place where Dany's dragons come... just like the moon meteor dragons would hit the place right below greenseer's location - I imagine it's much easier to steer sth into the moon when the moon is right above you and you can actually see it... btw, how long it'd take for the moonmeteros to hit Planetos? Hours? Days? It'd be interesting to know, as we could get assumption where the moonbreaker greenseers lived - Asshai and Stygai have to be the most badly affected places... The House of the Undying has a grove surrounding it: With trees that seem to be a corrupted version of the weirwoods, just like the shade of the evening is a corrupted version (red vs 'blue' blood?) of weirwood paste. They are similar to Bloodraven, but in far worse state... is it simply because they have been 'undead' for millenia, or because they use corrupted technology to achive that state? Here the Undying Ones seem to belive that they created dragons: So at least they belive they were the ones to crack the moon and bring dragons. And here is another warlocks - greenseer connection: Actually, one that Polish forums someone wrote quite interesting theory about the origin of dragons, origin of the maesters, mazemakers and Red Hands of Braavos... If I find time this evening, I'll send you the main points. Well, the undying claim to know the speech of dragonkind, but that's not quite the same as claiming to have created them. Still, but I think is really weird about the undying is that they think they can use dany's dragons. That would imply that they think they can use Fire magic, even though everything about them seems cold and blue, which makes us think of the others. They're building also drinks the light and coils like a snake, both of which are descriptions applied to meteor symbol objects. Their tower is kind of like the real "shadow tower," since it doesn't really exist (the building appears flat and low). Never been quite sure what to make of them. I tend to think car itself is not important, but rather a symbol of other things, kind of like a big metaphor. However, they are close to the great Empire of the Dawn territory, and they have a very old and magical Legacy to them, so it's definitely easy to imagine people who fled the great Empire found in car, or bringing a magical influence their. In fact that vision of the Glorious version of the undying the Dennis all right before she saw their true form, it kind of seems like a foggy memory of the Great Empire of the Dawn people. It's almost as if the undying were trying to show Dany a vision of her ancestors according to their best memory, thinking that it would compel her. The other reason to think the warlocks might actually be important, and not just a symbol, is that the Warlock tree paste play such a prominent role in Euron's story line, and he is of course a great Bloodstone Emperor echo. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bluetiger Posted December 15, 2016 Share Posted December 15, 2016 That essay and posts, from Ogień i Lód forum, originally posted here I had nothing to do with it, I just did the translation, after somebody suggested to show that to you. Drazekno: (27th July 2016) 'Recently, while I was reading Daenerys' chapters, I've picked up on the doors through which Dany enetered the House of The Undying (Clash of Kings, Chapter 48, Daenerys IV) 1. The door to the hall of 'splendid wizards', pretending to me the Undying Ones. Quote Finally the stair opened. To her right, a set of wide wooden doors had been thrown open. They were fashioned of ebony and weirwood, the black and white grains swirling and twisting in strange interwoven patterns. They were very beautiful, yet somehow frightening. The blood of the dragon must not be afraid. Dany said a quick prayer, begging the Warrior for courage and the Dothraki horse god for strength. She made herself walk forward. Beyond the doors was a great hall and a splendor of wizards Those doors are similar to the entrance door of the House of Black and White (Feast for Crows, Chapter 6, Arya I) Quote She patted Needle's hilt for luck and plunged into the shadows, taking the steps two at a time so no one could ever say she'd been afraid. At the top she found a set of carved wooden doors twelve feet high. The left-hand door was made of weirwood pale as bone, the right of gleaming ebony. In their center was a carved moon face; ebony on the weirwood side, weirwood on the ebony. The look of it reminded her somehow of the heart tree in the godswood at Winterfell. The doors are watching me, she thought. The doors differ in regards to the imagery showed on them, but the black and white patches clearly reference the temple of the God of Many Faces. The chair on which the Faceless Men sit, in the beginning Arya's second chapter in Dance are made of weirwood and ebony as well. Quote Eleven servants of the Many-Faced God gathered that night beneath the temple, more than she had ever seen together at one time. Only the lordling and the fat fellow arrived by the front door; the rest came by secret ways, through tunnels and hidden passages. They wore their robes of black and white, but as they took their seats each man pulled his cowl down to show the face he had chosen to wear that day. Their tall chairs were carved of ebony and weirwood, like the doors of the temple above. The ebon chairs had weirwood faces on their backs, the weirwood chairs faces of carved ebony. 2. Door to the chamber of the Undying. Quote Doubt seized her. The great door was so heavy it took all of Dany's strength to budge it, but finally it began to move. Behind was another door, hidden. It was old grey wood, splintery and plain . . . but it stood to the right of the door through which she'd entered. That door is very similar to the entrance of King's Landing's dungeons (Feast for Crows, Chapter 27, Jaime III) Quote When Jaime decided to take him, he had sought out Ser Ilyn's chambers at the end of Traitor's Walk. The upper floor of the squat, half-round tower was divided into cells for prisoners who required some measure of comfort, captive knights or lordlings awaiting ransom or exchange. The entrance to the dungeons proper was at ground level, behind a door of hammered iron and a second of splintery grey wood. On the floors between were rooms set aside for the use of the Chief Gaoler, the Lord Confessor, and the King's Justice. The Justice was a headsman, but by tradition he also had charge of the dungeons and the men who kept them. In the fragments show above, it's not clearly stated that the first door are heavy, but it's likely they are - after all they were made from hammered iron - so they must be heavy. Jaime didn't take notice of that, as he is much stronger than Dany and had no truuble with opening them. The second door are described in a very similar way in both fragments'. Asiek (27th July 2016) As far as the door are concerned, another weirwood door were located in the Nightfort (...) Drazenko (27.07.2017) 'It's possible that there are other weirwood doors, but the House of Black and White's door are special, as in one object weirwood and ebony are combined, a rare combination, for example because of the distance between regions where the both species live. Apart from those two buildings, only Tobho Mott's forge at King's Landing has door made from these two materials: (Game of Thrones, Chapter 27, Eddard Vi) Quote The double doors showed a hunting scene carved in ebony and weirwood. In the Polish edition, this sentence was wrongly translated as: 'the double doors were decorated with a hunting scene, carved in ivory and hornbeam wood'. NOTE from BLUE: In Poland, GOT had another translator than the rest of the series, the first edition was extremly bad (for example King's Landing was left in English, while Winterfell became 'Zimopad' , an ridiculous combination of 'winter' and suffix of 'to drop'), the second very bad etc. Later they hired another translator to do it all over again, and it was much better, but some mistakes still remain. The white and black patches on the qartheen door clearly show that they have a counterpart in the Braavosi doors, and the House of Black and White plays a far more important role in ASOIAF than Mott's forge. Few posts later: AlojzyFrak: 'Ying and Yang, good and evil, cold North and fiery South. The symbol of lie, merging both good and evil, cold and heat, life and death - that seems to be the simplest interpretation.' Inny (The Other): Essentially you're right, but it's worth to mention that the symbol we're talking about here is really called taijitu. Taijitu Ying and Yang We get yin and yang only after we break apart that symbol (...) Still, the ying and yang are the most interesting things here, Wikipedia as while reading the main premises of ying and yang, and what and how they represent, it's hard to not notice that they perfectly fit the metaphysics of world created by Martin, starting by the changes and transformations of characters, going through the interactions between them, and finally finishing at phenomenons taking place all over the world , at the global scale. It's also worth to mention that in the phylosophy behind that symbol, the concept of 'good' and 'bad' essentially does not exist. Good and evil are the classic dualism. Two aspects with the same source, eternaly in conflict. At the same time, yin and yang, despite being a minor oppositions, have the same source, penetrate each other and complement each other, their mutual interactions are what fuel the existence of the whole world. (...) Mya Stone (17th October 2016) The study of whorls and spirals, which arose as the result of exchange of ravens between me and the Other. I was reading the Feast for Crows, when new posts appeared in this topic and I sent a private message about the spirals at Qyburn's robe. Other: (...) I got yours pm when I was reading the original Palace of Dust, because of Drazenko's post. I quickly looked at the wiki and I've noticed that the swirling patterns on Qyburn's robe are described as whorls. I must admit that I never saw this wors used in this context. Each of us started separate reasearch and later we exchanged what we've found. Other: 'It's cool that there are so many similarities between our remarks, when it comes to quotes or subtleties of the plot connected to the topic of 'whorls'. This resulted in similar considerations about spirals and whorls, which I've divided into two sections: 1. Qyburn, The House of the Undying and dragon egg crusts. 2. Massey spirals. 1. Qyburn and the House of the Undying, dragon egg crusts. Other: the spirals at the doors are described as: Quote ...the black and white grains swirling and twisting in strange interwoven patterns. , which would suggest as symbol seeking the infinity in its pattern. I've returned to reading that Palace of Dust chapter and at that very moment, I stumbled upon something like that: in one of the corridors passed by Dany, there is an old carpet: Quote The mold-eaten carpet under her feet had once been gorgeously colored, and whorls of gold could still be seen in the fabric, glinting broken amidst the faded grey and mottled green. now, let's compare this to description of Qyburn's robes: Quote He had garbed himself in something very like maester's robes, but white instead of grey, immaculate as the cloaks of the Kingsguard. Whorls of gold decorated his hem, sleeves, and stiff high collar, and a golden sash was tied about his waist. The interesting thing is that, in the English language, the word 'whorl' is quite specific. It seems that the translator made not mistake by translating it as 'spirals' , but from what I've found out, in English 'whorl' is usually used in exact sciences, to desribe a certain geometrical shape, which is often found in nature: Whorls It's interesting to think whether we have a similar thing as with 'bed of blood' and 'hinges of the worlds' , when George uses an archaism, or rarely used word (or word wiht double meaning), playing a wordplay with us, and wanting to make us notice important details in the main plot. Quote When she woke the third time, a shaft of golden sunlight was pouring through the smoke hole of the tent, and her arms were wrapped around a dragon’s egg. It was the pale one, its scales the color of butter cream, veined with whorls of gold and bronze, and Dany could feel the heat of it. From GOT, a scene where Dany, just after being awoken, observes a play of light at the dragons eggs, caused by the sunray coming into the tent. Afterwards, she feels like something is moving inside (...) Quote Tyrion had glimpsed a dozen different sorts: large turtles and small ones, flatbacks and red-ears, softshells and bonesnappers, brown turtles, green turtles, black turtles, clawed turtles and horned turtles, turtles whose ridged and patterned shells were covered with whorls of gold and jade and cream. Some were so large they could have borne a man upon their backs. Yandry swore the Rhoynar princes used to ride them across the river. He and his wife were Greenblood born, a pair of Dornish orphans come home to Mother Rhoyne. Tyrion, at Rhoyne, during his voyages. Quote The scales were smooth beneath his fingers, and the deep, rich red seemed to shimmer as he turned the egg in his hands. Blood and flame, he thought, but there were gold flecks in it as well, and whorls of midnight black. The Mystery Knight provides a description of the dragon egg, that was supposed to be used as prize for the winner of Lord Butterwell's tourney. In the Mystery Knight there's also this: Quote "No, but there are eggs. The last dragon left a clutch of five, and they have more on Dragonstone, old ones from before the Dance. My brothers all have them too. Aerion's looks as though it's made of gold and silver, with veins of fire running through it. Mine is white and green, all swirly." That's a description of Egg's egg. In the original text, swirly is used, to describe the mixing of patterns and colours on the egg. I think this fits the rest of our examples. WOW Spoiler from preview chapter. From Aeron's WOW chapter: Whorls and glyphs and arcane symbols molded into steel. Valyrian steel, the Damphair knew. His armor is Valyrian steel. The Palace of Dust is built on the set of circle/spiral. Quote Long and low, without towers or windows, it coiled like a stone serpent through a grove of black-barked trees whose inky blue leaves made the stuff of the sorcerous drink the Qartheen called shade of the evening. No other buildings stood near. Black tiles covered the palace roof, many fallen or broken; the mortar between the stones was dry and crumbling. She understood now why Xaro Xhoan Daxos called it the Palace of Dust. Even Drogon seemed disquieted by the sight of it. The black dragon hissed, smoke seeping out between his sharp teeth. Let's try to put all of what we know together. Obviously, Qyburn becomes a very interesting person here. White robe, a kind of an official uniform, or ceremonial outfit, suggest tht he's not a simple renegade-maester, but member of some organisation - which dresses in white and puts a symbol on their robes - it's characterisctic that this symbol is often found in nature, and is often used in exact sciences, mainly biology to be precise. We see that symbol in the Palace of Dust, where the very old and ancient warlocks live... this suggests that the organisation/sect/cult is extremly old, mayhaps its roots reach the times before the Long Night. IMO, the white colour of robes is characteristic. It might suggest that this order's wizards used to server the Emperor of GEOTD. Looking back at Qyburn's habits, actions and beliefs, I'd risk saying that thay are the progenitors of Westerosi measters - the proto-maesters. 'The White Maesters', the opposite of 'Grey Sheep' of Oldtown, who were studying and researching nature, gaining understanding of it and through that, they had no fear the topic of magic. BLUE: LML, this fits your idea of magic's role in nature perfectly. Another interesting thing is that the whorls appear on dragons eggs as well. This seems to be nothing important, after all this pattern is found in nature.. and yet... septon Barth claimed that dragons are an artificial creation, cultured from wyverns, via some magical mutation. So where the 'whorls' on dragon eggs come from? GARTH = BARTH ? IMO it's a signature of their creators, the seal of 'White Maesters' - You've heard it here, it's our idea. Take a look at warlock's behavior in their false, young forms, in conversation with Dany: Quote She took a step forward. But then Drogon leapt from her shoulder. He flew to the top of the ebony-and-weirwood door, perched there, and began to bite at the carved wood. "A willful beast," laughed a handsome young man. "Shall we teach you the secret speech of dragonkind? Come, come." Doubt seized her. The great door was so heavy it took all of Dany's strength to budge it, but finally it began to move. Behind was another door, hidden. It was old grey wood, splintery and plain . . . but it stood to the right of the door through which she'd entered. The wizards were beckoning her with voices sweeter than song. She ran from them, Drogon flying back down to her. Through the narrow door she passed, into a chamber awash in gloom. It's suggestive and thought-provoking. And it fits GRRM's 'pudency' and love for twists... it's funny that Drogno's dragonfire actually burned his creators... Than, we have the Rhoyne turtles. What are they? I think that another result of White Measter's expermiments in the GEoTD age. From that ADWD quote we hear that Rhoynar princes used to ride them across the river... It's worth to mention that in the Rhoynar-Valyrians war both sides used elemental magic - Rhoynars water and Valyrians fire. Perhaps in that lost confrontation the turtles where what dragons were for the Valyrians. A war beasts and mounts. All of that is obviously sloppy and we shouldn't assume it's true. It's all built upon the idea that GRRM plays a wordplay bu using a rare word, and such thesis can be in no way proved certainly right. But still, it's worth to analyse such concepts once again. More plausible is the idea that some bigger organisation stands behind Qyburn. Qyburn and Marwyn used to have very good relationship when that second used to study at the Citadel. And knowing what they say about Marwyn, we can assume that he might be a 'white maester' in conspiracy. We can even take it a bit further. During Sam's chat with Marywn, Pate and Alleras are also present in the room. Pate who is an transformed Alchemist, and might be on a quest to steal something from the Citadel. Maybe acting on behalf of the 'white maesters, and if Marwyn is indeed a conspired White M., their close contacts seem to be likely. Than ,we have Alleras (or Sarella as many suggest) - Oberyn's 4th snake. Mayhe she's also in league with White Maesters, spying on the Citadel for them. Another topic is the GEOTD... I didn't like that state from the very beginning - IMO a country built uopn a theocratic despotism can't be good. If indeed the WM, who had no hesitation to perfrom necromancy and biomagical manipulation, are rooted in the Empire of the Dawn, than we begin to see the image of state where the ruler is god and the priest class, thanks to their scientific and magical knowledge keep the stupid commoners in line. Something similar to Prus' 'The Pharaoh' book, which clearly shows problems with such statehoods. The Pharaoh To finish this, I'll just add that I have more and more doubts that the spiral of ebony and weirdood at the doors is taijitu. I'm starting to thing that it's atualy the DNA double helix, which's crossection looks a bit like a flower - and it's system of petals is sometimes described as 'whorl'. Mya Stone: I'd connect the whorls on Qyburn's robes with the House of Red Hands in Braavos: Quote "I have informers sniffing after the Imp everywhere, Your Grace," said Qyburn. He had garbed himself in something very like maester's robes, but white instead of grey, immaculate as the cloaks of the Kingsguard. Whorls of gold decorated his hem, sleeves, and stiff high collar, and a golden sash was tied about his waist. "Oldtown, Gulltown, Dorne, even the Free Cities. Wheresoever he might run, my whisperers will find him." and: Quote Varys had all of us believing he was irreplaceable. What fools we were. Once the queen let it become known that Qyburn had taken the eunuch's place, the usual vermin had wasted no time in making themselves known to him, to trade their whispers for a few coins. It was the silver all along, not the Spider. Qyburn will serve us just as well. She was looking forward to the look on Pycelle's face when Qyburn took his seat. to: Quote Instead he had squandered the last of their silver on a healer from the House of the Red Hands, a tall pale man in robes embroidered with swirling stripes of red and white. All that the silver bought him was half a flask of dreamwine. "This may help gentle his passing," the Braavosi had said, not unkindly. When Sam asked if there wasn't any more that he could do, he shook his head. "Ointments I have, potions and infusions, tinctures and venoms and poultices. I might bleed him, purge him, leech him . . . but why? No leech can make him young again. This is an old man, and death is in his lungs. Give him this and let him sleep." The spiral/whorl is a common motif in nearly every mythology. Let's begin with the Mayan culture and the Greek and Hebrew alphabets. 'TAU (T) symbolises resurrection and emergence out of water. The emergence of land from water and new life. Each time after being sunk the land emerged once again. In the Mayan calendar this symbol means 'air' and the sprial movement of air and wind. It's also known in Viking and India cultures. Tau is a Hebrew and Greek alphabet latter. In Christianity the Tau Cross in connected to the Jesus Christ' House of Red Hands in Braavos is famous for healing and Qyburn ressurects Robert Strong? A coincidence? I don't think so. Qyburn wasn;t thrown out the Citadel for no reason. He might have joined a healing school in Essos later (and then the Brave Companions?) He came back to Westeros with the Bloody Mummers, when Tywin brought them from across the Narrow Sea. The House of Red Hands is mysterious (fiery dragon meteors connection?) We have the elite killers in Braavos - and it seems the elite healers as well - they'll even raise the dead. It's mentioned in AFoC and TWOIAF. We can connect it to the R'hlorr faith: the fire warriors of Red God's temple in Volantis are called the Fiery Hand, Thoros filled Beric's mouth with fire and gave him the kiss of life.. and then he came back to life... Zombie Beric, zombie Lady Stoneheart and zombie Robert Strong. A connection to the weirwood gods - a false lead? -- or the weirwood way of preserving life? Quote At the center of the grove an ancient weirwood brooded over a small pool where the waters were black and cold. "The heart tree," Ned called it. The weirwood's bark was white as bone, its leaves dark red, like a thousand bloodstained hands. A face had been carved in the trunk of the great tree, its features long and melancholy, the deep-cut eyes red with dried sap and strangely watchful. They were old, those eyes; older than Winterfell itself. They had seen Brandon the Builder set the first stone, if the tales were true; they had watched the castle's granite walls rise around them. It was said that the children of the forest had carved the faces in the trees during the dawn centuries before the coming of the First Men across the narrow sea. as you see, we suggest that Qyburn is someone extraordinary. According to the other he is a member of the Order of White Maesters, an organisation connected to the Undying of Qarth and GEOTD. I've connected him to the House of Red Hands and now I suppose the white maesters are connected with it as well. The golden whorl is their seal on dragon egg crusts. The 'white measters' created the monstrous turtles and dragons. (...) Why did the Dawn Emperors reign for centuries? Beacause they had a white order (who could bring them back after death) The Winter Kings of old achieved the same by bloody sacrifices to the weirwoods, and they could reign for hundreds of years. Part 2: I'll translate it when I find time. What do you think about this LML? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LmL Posted December 15, 2016 Author Share Posted December 15, 2016 Hey @Blue Tiger, I feel like there is an elaborate "white maester" conspiracy here, and this is the first I have heard of the idea, so it seems like I am missing something. I think the symbolism of the whorls is interesting - it's a symbol I haven't noticed that much - but I don't think we can connect Qyburn to anything else based on that symbol alone. Perhaps there's more, but I am missing it. As for a larger organization, the one to keep an eye on is the Church of Starry Wisdom. We basically know that Quitter is eyeballs deep in that shizzle, and Marywn I think is overwhelmingly likely to be a practitioner as well - those would be the queer dockside temples he's been frequenting. I had not thought about Qyburn as such, but's worth considering perhaps. I personally don't tin his... whatever he's doing with Gregor... is meant to be viewed as similar to any other magic in the books, except perhaps Faceless Men. Both of their... processes, shall we say, seem like steampunk fantasy science, you know? I suspect Qybirn is using what we would call "blood magic," and that may be what the faceless Men do as well, but the point is I don't think Qyburn has anything to do with fire or ice or greenseer magic. As of the Red Hands in Bravos... never been able to figure them. Red hands are primarily a symbol of two things: the red leaves of the weirwood, and the concept of the fiery and bloody meteor flinging hand of god, the hand as an exploding moon symbol, essentially. But the scene with that healer is short, and I can't really figure out what George is saying. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LmL Posted December 15, 2016 Author Share Posted December 15, 2016 6 hours ago, Blue Tiger said: I think that the Undying of Qarth and warlocks are some corrupted for of Green Men/human greenseers: We know that there were or still are Children of the Forrest (or their close kin)- Ifequevron and Giants (Jhogowin) is Essos. - these COTF are seeked by Bryan (Bran) of Oldtown, just like our Bran seeks them, and 'Bryan of Oldtown' is similar to Bran the Builder, who supposedly built the Hightower: - that last line - little people blessed a household that left offerings of leaf and stone and water overnight - sounds like 'helpful elves' from Norse mythology, so we have another COTF connection - carved trees and skinchanging references: Wood walkers might evoke Others, but I think it's more likely here it means COTF... So, Essos, especially eastern, has or had it's own COTF or very similar race... so probably humans of that continent, just like their Westerosi counterparts, also rearned greensight and warging magic. The legend about the breaking of the moon comes from Qarth - so I imagine they at least once had a very good knowledge about these events - of all cultures their version gives the actual reason for the Long Night - so mayhaps the proto-Undying were directly responsible for it. So, once Qarth was fertile and rich in wildlife, just like Westeros... the wolves are mentioned, hinting at warging. But it there was some cataclysm, that turned all lands near it into Waste... Note that Qarth is called 'the entre of the world' and it's the very first place where Dany's dragons come... just like the moon meteor dragons would hit the place right below greenseer's location - I imagine it's much easier to steer sth into the moon when the moon is right above you and you can actually see it... btw, how long it'd take for the moonmeteros to hit Planetos? Hours? Days? It'd be interesting to know, as we could get assumption where the moonbreaker greenseers lived - Asshai and Stygai have to be the most badly affected places... The House of the Undying has a grove surrounding it: With trees that seem to be a corrupted version of the weirwoods, just like the shade of the evening is a corrupted version (red vs 'blue' blood?) of weirwood paste. They are similar to Bloodraven, but in far worse state... is it simply because they have been 'undead' for millenia, or because they use corrupted technology to achive that state? Here the Undying Ones seem to belive that they created dragons: So at least they belive they were the ones to crack the moon and bring dragons. And here is another warlocks - greenseer connection: Actually, one that Polish forums someone wrote quite interesting theory about the origin of dragons, origin of the maesters, mazemakers and Red Hands of Braavos... If I find time this evening, I'll send you the main points. Well, the undying claim to know the speech of dragonkind, but that's not quite the same as claiming to have created them. Still, but I think is really weird about the undying is that they think they can use dany's dragons. That would imply that they think they can use Fire magic, even though everything about them seems cold and blue, which makes us think of the others. They're building also drinks the light and coils like a snake, both of which are descriptions applied to meteor symbol objects. Their tower is kind of like the real "shadow tower," since it doesn't really exist (the building appears flat and low). Never been quite sure what to make of them. I tend to think car itself is not important, but rather a symbol of other things, kind of like a big metaphor. However, they are close to the great Empire of the Dawn territory, and they have a very old and magical Legacy to them, so it's definitely easy to imagine people who fled the great Empire found in car, or bringing a magical influence their. In fact that vision of the Glorious version of the undying the Dennis all right before she saw their true form, it kind of seems like a foggy memory of the Great Empire of the Dawn people. It's almost as if the undying were trying to show Dany a vision of her ancestors according to their best memory, thinking that it would compel her. The other reason to think the warlocks might actually be important, and not just a symbol, is that the Warlock tree paste play such a prominent role in Euron's story line, and he is of course a great Bloodstone Emperor echo. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lady Fishbiscuit Posted December 16, 2016 Share Posted December 16, 2016 On 13/12/2016 at 3:50 AM, LmL said: We are referring to the fact that Melisandre calls the Wall one of the hinges of the world, and says that.. oh let me get the quote. Both from ADWD: “I have dreamed of your Wall, Jon Snow. Great was the lore that raised it, and great the spells locked beneath its ice. We walk beneath one of the hinges of the world.” . . . She was stronger at the Wall, stronger even than in Asshai. Her every word and gesture was more potent, and she could do things that she had never done before. Such shadows as I bring forth here will be terrible, and no creature of the dark will stand before them. The wild part is that a fire priestess is made stronger by whatever magic is locked in the Wall. As I was saying, this implies that ice and fire magic have something in common. And of course it implies that the Wall can serve as an amplifier for magic. It also wards against the Others and the wights, so obviously it's doing more than one thing. The wall, like Winterfell could be fire power/magic locked within ice, like obsidian, which is why it protects against ice magic (others), why Mel is stronger there, why Aemon lived longer there and why Jon will be resurrected there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LmL Posted December 16, 2016 Author Share Posted December 16, 2016 1 hour ago, Lady Fishbiscuit said: The wall, like Winterfell could be fire power/magic locked within ice, like obsidian, which is why it protects against ice magic (others), why Mel is stronger there, why Aemon lived longer there and why Jon will be resurrected there. yes, I agree - I've always liked the idea that there is a black stone wall beneath the ice wall, perhaps even an oily black stone or a fused black stone wall. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LmL Posted December 16, 2016 Author Share Posted December 16, 2016 Oh and hey guys, just by the way... We've talked a lot about the idea of something fiery inside of winter, or inside of the ice Moon, but we haven't talked about what is the ice inside the fire moon, or said another way what is the element of ice within fire? I was thinking about this, and it occurred to me that the Targaryen looks might be symbolic of this idea. They're pale skin, and they're white silver and gold hair might speak to this idea. Think about a silver-haired Targaryen sitting on the black Iron Beast which is the iron throne. Think about Daenerys the Silver Queen riding the black dragon. Think about the fair and pale haired Targaryen armoring up in black armor, like Rhaegar or Aegon the Conqueror. In terms of astronomy, we might think about the original comment as in I see one, like real comments are - remember that lightbringer was white hot and smoking when it was thrust into this and it's his heart. A white sword goes into Nissa Nissa, and a red or red and black sword comes out. Again I will mention the ghost grass around the shadowlands. The ghost grass is essentially like a field of dawn swords, and we find them clustered around the heart of shadow. It would be better if the ghost grass were in some sort of courtyard in the middle of a show, I suppose, but the point is we do see this weird symbol of Dawn and I see things right around Asshai. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David C. Hunter Posted December 16, 2016 Share Posted December 16, 2016 @LmL Thanks for this assessment! Just finished reading part 2 and i cannot wait for part 3! But, I wanted to maybe add something to this analysis and I think you were headed this direction anyway. But I wanted to see if I'm on the same page with you. (I will paraphrase, I have to go to work in a few, haha) * it started when I started remembering the ancient Kings of Winter statues in the crypt. With part two of your analysis stuck in my head, I started trying to look at every piece of evidence to suggests the Starks are the Kings of Winter, thus the Kings of death. So, we associate the North with death in which winter is synonymous with. So, in terms of magic what do we associate with Winter/Death? The Others and their undead army. But more importantly was the defining characteristic of the Others/wights: The Blue eyes. Other traits include pale skin, inhuman strength potentially, and at least for the wights, they do not have to sleep or eat and they cannot feel the cold, as you've stated in your analysis. For the underlined reasons, you stated that a person with these abilities would be perfectly suited to survive the Long Night, and I agree. Who better to survive the Winter or travel to the Lands of Always Winter than someone who can't feel the cold and doesn't need to sleep or eat? (Not to mention greenseeing and skinchanging abilities, haha) So, that got me thinking...what happened to the Last Hero? Okay, so for me, the Night's king and the Last Hero are one in the same. (The Last Hero was the 13th final member alive, the Night's King was the 13th Lord Commander) The Last Hero was indeed and undead, skinchanging green man diplomat that negotiated peace with the Others, possibly through marriage. I believe this peace deal was struck at Winterfell. And I believe the Wall was erected to mark the territory of the Others, but also to honor the peace deal. (I believe the COTF, Humans, Giants and Others built the Wall as some sort of united nations blood pact) The Others would stay North of the Wall, and the Last Hero(or Stark descendants) would rule with his Other wife at the Night Fort, eventually being called the Night's King, the representation of the peace union between races as well as the border. (Maybe this peace also required children sacrifice to the Others as well, though I feel like there is more to this) See, I feel like the Night's King is just a fantastical story that talks of the downfall of the "Stark" rulers of the Night Fort. Maybe he was a bad leader, maybe the Starks at Winterfell got greedy, or maybe there was another reason. And I do mean "Stark". For I think the peace treaty the Others made with the First Men was with the proto-Starks. The Marriage Peace Pact was made at the weirwood where Winterfell is. "There must always be a Stark in Winterfell may be a part of this peace deal made with the Others. Maybe the proto-starks were the only clan that the Others trusted to keep to the peace treaty. However, i also feel like the Night's Fort was also ruled by a Stark (maybe a brother to the King of Winterfell). After all, as the Night's King story goes, many believe he was a Stark and many believe that he was Brother to the King in the North. It also seems to be tradition that a Stark sibling mans the Wall. It may have been a hereditary rule when it first started, but later voting was implemented. Bottomline, there was a rift between the Night's king and the King in the North and eventually the King in the North defeated his brother and ended his line, thus apparently ending the alliance with the Others who were now stuck North of the Wall (this is beyond speculative). BUT....it didn't end there. I believe the brother to the Night's King, Brandon the Breaker took his Other-wife as his own, and continued the union in Winterfell. But, before I build off of that, I want to go back to what you said and why I feel like the Last Hero was indeed the Night's King that was defeated by his brother (or descendant). The Last Hero was definitely a skinchanging/greenseeing zombie. Whether immortal or long-lived, he furthered his abilities by marrying an Other who had "eyes like blue stars". She had blue eyes because as an Other, she was death personified. However, the only way humans have blue ice eyes like that, would be if they were dead and brought back to life via Ice Magic, like a wight. The proto-Starks during the Long Night (including the Last Hero) and the Starks that emerged after the Long Night survived a hellish time. 100 foot snows, no food, no water, no shelter. This is why it was concluded that the Last Hero had to be undead. For who better to reign during the Long Night? Not only do you not feel the cold nor do you have to eat or sleep, but your powers are also increased since you are closer to nature and death itself. The Stark children give us Magic levels. Arya lost her eyes, and was able to have more intense wolf dreams and could warg into cats. Bran was in a coma for a while and could warg into another human and had the ability to green dream. I think this is deliberately put to show us that the closer one is to death and forced to use his/her third eye, the more magical potential there is (For humans at least). Jon has already been stated to be an even more gifted skinchanger than Bran...can you imagine what death would do for his abilities? So, the Last Hero and thus the Night's King were probably very powerful indeed. So, my question is...how long did this tradition continue? How were the Starks feared for so long, how did they survive this long in the realm of Winter and Death? How did they become Kings of Death and Winter? By being death itself of course! I surmise that it was tradition for the Kings of Winter to be zombified to increase their powers and abilities to survive and "fight" the Winter. Only the dead can maximize their powerrs to the max, for the North is death personified. The evidence is in the crypts, in Bran's greendreams and in old stories told of the Stark Kings. 1.) The Crypts are referenced often, usually in relation to Jon Snow who feels like he needs to go down there. Jon is also about to be resurrected probably similar to the Stark Kings of old. 2.) The Kings of Winter statues are all depicted with Direwolves, meaning it was just once in a generation that a warg was in the family. The Kings were ALWAYS wargs. 3.) The Kings of Winter statues are setup in such a way to "keep the dead from rising" (Yeah, to keep their own dead Kings from rising. Apparently it was an issue. 4.) And the smoking gun for me....any man raised from the dead using ice magic will have blue eyes, just like the wights. For in this story, that is the color of death and winter. Now, the Starks are told to have grey eyes...but what about their ancestors? "He was walking through the crypts beneath Winterfell, as he had walked a thousand times before. The Kings of Winter watched him pass with eyes of ice." "Brandon Stark this was, Edrick Snowbeard's great-grandson, him that men called Ice Eyes. He took the Wolf's Den back, stripped the slavers naked." Now look at the description of the Others "The Other halted. Will saw its eyes; blue, deeper and bluer than any human eyes, a blue that burned like ice." All the Kings of Winter statues in the crypts are depicted with blue Ice Eyes, the same as the wights, and the Others....That is how they survived ad became Kings for Winter, for only the dead can rule during a time of eternal darkness. After all, "What is dead may never die, but rise again harder and stronger." (It seems the Ironborn were trying to do the same thing) Now, the rising of the dead can only be achieved through blood sacrifice. If I can recall, the last vision Bran has is a woman sliting a man's throat before a heart tree. Another blood sacrifice that Bran can taste in his mouth. This is significant because the very next chapter ( i think) is Jon Snow getting killed.....I do not think this is a coincidence. I think Bran is witnessing perhaps the first ever blood sacrifice to raise an undead King in the North. Even in the gift chapter, Bran is trying to get Theon to the heart tree, where he will be killed. It could be a ploy, but still. This is the darkside of the Stark history that caused a continent to fear them. On a side note, this is why I feel like Ice Dragons can only exist IF they are dead Dragons risen again. For, Ice is the personfication of deeath. and again, what is dead may never die, but rise again, harder and stronger. This is why Ice Dragons melt and there are no bones left. This is also why Ice Dragons are 3x bigger than Fire Dragons. Anyway @LmL What do you think??? My apologies for being so unorganized or if all of this was brought up already. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LmL Posted December 17, 2016 Author Share Posted December 17, 2016 Hey there @David C. Hunter, glad your enjoying the zombie series. I definitely k that is all quite possible. I think the Nights King and the Last Hero could absolutely be the same person. If they aren't, they are related or connected in some way, I would guess. I've noticed the various ice eyes quotes add well, and actually I will mention that in part 3 a bit. I think the idea of a child of the Nights King and corpse queen being smuggled south of the Wall to become part of House Stark is possible, and I think I found a possible echo of this idea in the fact that Sam smuggles a baby who was supposed to become an Other back to Castle Black. Honestly I am pretty open minded as far as how the last hero story connects to House Stark. We know it does, but how? Your scenario is definitely plausible, as we have the idea of a Stark King of Winter defeating Nights King already. Brothers? Father / son? it's hard to say, there are potential echoes for both. Where is that you see Jon being implied as a stronger greenseer than Bran? Or even a greenseer at all? I can't recall such a passage. There is definitely a lot in the books about sacrificing to gain magical power. It's a well trod mythological theme that George is pretty interested in. Are you familiar with the Odin mythology? And finally, as far as the Starks and being undead, that's an interesting notion you proposed. Certainly there is a lot of foreshadowing about the Starks and rising from the dead, I'll be excited to see where it goes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sweetsunray Posted December 17, 2016 Share Posted December 17, 2016 I've had not chance yet to catch up on this thread... but I did notice the mention of the Wild Hunt, and in conversation we've exchanged ideas about canrival, harlequin, stag and deer, my bear hunt stuff, the winter-summer sacrifice and how it's related to it. I was reading up on the Wild Hunt legends described by Grimm in his Teutonic Mythology (you can google it and read the translation in public archives as the copyright is long gone). Now here's one of the characters associated with leading a Wild Hunt in one of the regions. Quote The Low Saxon legend says, Hans von Hackelnberg was chief master of the hounds to the Duke of Brunswick, and a mighty woodman, said to have died in 1521 (some say, born that year, died 1581), Landau s Jagd 190. His tombstone is three leagues from Goslar, in the garden of an inn called the Klepperkrug. He had a bad dream one night ; he fancied he was fighting a terrific boar and got beaten at last. He actually met the beast soon after, and brought it down after a hard fight ; in the joy of his victory he kicked at the boar, crying now slash if you can ! But he had kicked with such force, that the sharp tusk went through his boot, and injured his foot. He thought little of the wound at first, but the foot swelled so that the boot had to be cut off his leg, and a speedy death ensued. Some say he lies buried at Wiilperode near Hornburg. This Hackelnberg fatsches in storm and rain, with carriage, horses and hounds, through the Thiiringerwald, the Harz, and above all the Hackel (a forest between Halberstadt, Groningen and Derenburg, conf. Praet. weltb. 1, 88). On his deathbed he would not hear a word about heaven, and to the ministers exhortations he replied : the Lord may keep his heaven, so he leave me my hunting ; whereupon the parson spoke : hunt then till the Day of Judgment ! which saying is fulfilled unto this day. (Teutonic Mythology, volume 3, FURIOUS HOST : HACKELBEEND. p. 921, Grimm) Hans von Hackelnberg was supposedly a master hunter IRL, who preferred hunting over anything else. A boar did him in. The boar tusk is a recurring motif with Wild Hunt folklore. We can recognize our Robert in this Hans, except the boar didn't injure his leg, but gored his belly, while Ned was the one who injured his leg before that in a not-hunt. And then of course we have Robin Goodfellow as a Wild Hunt figure, with Robin simply being another version of Robert. And in Dutch a "bear" is not just the way we address the animal, but it also is used for a male boar. Robert calls the boar a devil, who is also associated with the Wild Hunt spectre phenomenon. Now what I find interesting is that in the later folk tales, the Wild Hunt is associated as an evil thing, the devil hunting souls, but it is also often associated with figures at the head who could be benevolent or ruled a pantheon, like Wodan/Odin. Robin Goodfellow is related to Puck or Hob-goblins, which are spirits that may make a lot of noise and pranks, but who can act like beneficiaries when pleased. Meanwhile Robert, Robin, Ludd's son (or Nudd's son), Frau Holle and others have names that include the meaning of bright, light or fair, yet associated with the underworld. When often I see the Wild Hunt referenced before it was to associate it with the Others being hellbent on going helter-skelter (another Wild Hunt reference), but I think that the dozen and one, the Last Hero and his comrades migth actually be the ones performing the Wild Hunt. This would fit the idea of underworldy characters who are doing their job - preserving the order of nature, drag those that escape back to the underworld, or prevent the dead from escaping. And here comes in the dog and horse pattern that so often is part of mythical astronomy scenes. Dogs bark, horses neigh, but Llud's son has his faitful dog with a ruddy nose on the Wild Hunt and Wodan rides his white horse. The wind is associated with the phenomenon - the Wild Hunt appears when the winter winds come blasting and the bells ring. In some regions if happens during the twelve days after Christmass which ends at the 12th Night in a fool's day, or around Halloween, in others it's more associated with the Carnaval period (another time when a fool's bells must ring). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David C. Hunter Posted December 18, 2016 Share Posted December 18, 2016 23 hours ago, LmL said: Hey there @David C. Hunter, glad your enjoying the zombie series. I definitely k that is all quite possible. I think the Nights King and the Last Hero could absolutely be the same person. If they aren't, they are related or connected in some way, I would guess. I've noticed the various ice eyes quotes add well, and actually I will mention that in part 3 a bit. I think the idea of a child of the Nights King and corpse queen being smuggled south of the Wall to become part of House Stark is possible, and I think I found a possible echo of this idea in the fact that Sam smuggles a baby who was supposed to become an Other back to Castle Black. Honestly I am pretty open minded as far as how the last hero story connects to House Stark. We know it does, but how? Your scenario is definitely plausible, as we have the idea of a Stark King of Winter defeating Nights King already. Brothers? Father / son? it's hard to say, there are potential echoes for both. Where is that you see Jon being implied as a stronger greenseer than Bran? Or even a greenseer at all? I can't recall such a passage. There is definitely a lot in the books about sacrificing to gain magical power. It's a well trod mythological theme that George is pretty interested in. Are you familiar with the Odin mythology? And finally, as far as the Starks and being undead, that's an interesting notion you proposed. Certainly there is a lot of foreshadowing about the Starks and rising from the dead, I'll be excited to see where it goes. Awesome @LmL Thanks for the response. As for Jon Snow, I meant "Skinchanger" Not Greenseer. My mistake. But overall, i get the feeling of the Stark Kings of old were often zombified to increase their powers. I cannot wait to see if this is true or not. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ravenous reader Posted December 20, 2016 Share Posted December 20, 2016 On 12/16/2016 at 0:13 PM, LmL said: Oh and hey guys, just by the way... We've talked a lot about the idea of something fiery inside of winter, or inside of the ice Moon, but we haven't talked about what is the ice inside the fire moon, or said another way what is the element of ice within fire? I was thinking about this, and it occurred to me that the Targaryen looks might be symbolic of this idea. They're pale skin, and they're white silver and gold hair might speak to this idea. Think about a silver-haired Targaryen sitting on the black Iron Beast which is the iron throne. Think about Daenerys the Silver Queen riding the black dragon. Think about the fair and pale haired Targaryen armoring up in black armor, like Rhaegar or Aegon the Conqueror. In terms of astronomy, we might think about the original comment as in I see one, like real comments are - remember that lightbringer was white hot and smoking when it was thrust into this and it's his heart. A white sword goes into Nissa Nissa, and a red or red and black sword comes out. Again I will mention the ghost grass around the shadowlands. The ghost grass is essentially like a field of dawn swords, and we find them clustered around the heart of shadow. It would be better if the ghost grass were in some sort of courtyard in the middle of a show, I suppose, but the point is we do see this weird symbol of Dawn and I see things right around Asshai. All vivid examples illustrating the paradigm-- great imaginative thinking as usual! I particularly like the image of the silver-haired Targaryen sitting in the middle of the black beast of the Iron Throne surrounding her like a thorny plant, which seems an inverse image to the greenseer (ever black-hearted of course, since we're no longer drawing a distinction between 'heretic' and 'non-heretic' greenseer) sitting in the middle of the white monster of the weirwood throne, which also happens to be quite a 'thorny' plant or temperamental 'see dragon' with a habit of sticking its tentacles into those who dare take up the seat of power. According to this metaphor, in both circumstances the 'heart' can be seen as the bloom of the thorny plant -- not a separate entity, but integral to the functioning of the complex as a whole. You've called it a 'transplant', which is a good analogy; in plant terms that would be a 'graft.' What's important to emphasize, however, and I think you may have touched on this before, is that people undergoing development in their 'arc' are fluid. In the course of their evolution, they may pass through several 'stages' or even occupy several at once, so they rarely conform to only one archetype or remain fixed in a rigid classification system. Accordingly, the paradigm also needs to be flexible enough to accommodate this fluidity and flux. A Targaryen character who starts out demonstrating the ice heart-within-the fire pattern might very well end up manifesting its opposite: as a fire heart-within-the ice. I have a few points to make about Dany who seems to have undergone this transition, from lunar moon maid, to Nissa Nissa fiery moon, to black sword, and then again to black sword embedded in an icy white shell. Let me elaborate: When Dany steps into the fire of Drogo's pyre, she's figuratively a silver-white ice heart engulfed by a yellow-orange-and-red fiery shell, which can be understood in mythical astronomy terms as the moon and sun interpenetrating one another -- a 'marriage' (Dany even refers to it as a marriage or wedding twice), or in sword terms a 'forging'. Note how Dany steps into the fire, which is an analogy for the moon penetrating the sun. At the same time, Dany opens her arms to the flames so she simultaneously receives the flames and allows them to penetrate her, an analogy for the sun also penetrating the moon. Once one starts talking in 'interpenetrative' terms, it's difficult to divide characters into clearly delineated 'male' and 'female' archetypes. Just as in the yin-yang symbol which I keep returning to as emblematic of GRRM's philosophy, the yin ('female' principle) and the yang ('male' principle) are both found within and surrounding the other simultaneously, as well as chasing each other's 'tails' eternally. Quote A Feast for Crows - Samwell IV What fools we were, who thought ourselves so wise! The error crept in from the translation. Dragons are neither male nor female, Barth saw the truth of that, but now one and now the other, as changeable as flame. The language misled us all for a thousand years. The quote to follow is an example of the male-female interchangeability symbolically and a demonstration, as I break it down, of the pitfalls of adhering too strictly to rigid notions of 'male' vs. 'female', specifically in terms of who does the penetrating: Although it's Drogo's funeral pyre -- which can be thought of as a symbol of the male solar principle -- the flames are also described as fiery dancing women, so immediately there's a male-female duality emanating from the same source. When Dany steps into the fire she -- being the dragon she is -- simultaneously embodies the 'male solar' and 'female lunar' principles respectively, by igniting the fire and boldly entering it in the first place (a 'masculine' gesture of 'insemination'); and at the same time allowing Drogo's fire to claim her, impregnating her (in fact she thinks of having sex with him one last time as she's preparing to enter the fire or have it enter her...you see how it gets so intertwined and confusing if one fixates strictly on diametrically defined dichotomies!) Quote A Game of Thrones - Daenerys X Dany took the torch [burning brand is generally considered a phallic symbol] from Aggo's hand and thrust it between the logs. ['male' gesture of penetration] The oil took the fire at once, the brush and dried grass a heartbeat later. Tiny flames went darting up the wood like swift red mice, skating over the oil and leaping from bark to branch to leaf. A rising heat puffed at her face, soft and sudden as a lover's breath, but in seconds it had grown too hot to bear. Dany stepped backward. The wood crackled, louder and louder. Mirri Maz Duur began to sing in a shrill, ululating voice. [mimics a woman nearing the 'la petite mort' of orgasm or alternatively the cry accompanying the 'delivery' represented by childbirth; so if Dany is the one responsible for bringing Mirri to this state of 'agony-ecstasy', then Dany is enacting the 'male solar' role in this moment] The flames whirled and writhed, racing each other up the platform. The dusk shimmered as the air itself seemed to liquefy from the heat. Dany heard logs spit and crack. The fires swept over Mirri Maz Duur. Her song grew louder, shriller … then she gasped, again and again, and her song became a shuddering wail, thin and high and full of agony. [elsewhere in the text we've been told the cry of 'agony' may be indistinguishable from that of 'ecstasy', demonstrating the former observation] And now the flames reached her Drogo, and now they were all around him. His clothing took fire, and for an instant the khal was clad in wisps of floating orange silk and tendrils of curling smoke, grey and greasy. Dany's lips parted [as if in desire] and she found herself holding her breath. Part of her wanted to go to him as Ser Jorah had feared, to rush into the flames to beg for his forgiveness and take him inside her one last time, the fire melting the flesh from their bones until they were as one, forever. [in her desire to be penetrated by the dying sun's last burst of flame, she acts as the 'female lunar' principle, thus switching gender roles in the same event] ...The heat beat at the air with great red wings, driving the Dothraki back, driving off even Mormont, but Dany stood her ground. She was the blood of the dragon, and the fire was in her. She had sensed the truth of it long ago, Dany thought as she took a step closer to the conflagration, but the brazier had not been hot enough. The flames writhed before her like the women who had danced at her wedding, whirling and singing and spinning their yellow and orange and crimson veils, fearsome to behold, yet lovely, so lovely, alive with heat. Dany opened her arms to them, her skin flushed and glowing. [embracing or opening is a female/maternal gesture] This is a wedding, too, she thought. Mirri Maz Duur had fallen silent. The godswife thought her a child, but children grow, and children learn. After Dany exits Drogo's funeral pyre, she emerges burnt yet unburnt, the way a freshly-forged sword will emerge renewed, hard and intact from the fire. Here in a prophetic dream foreshadowing her transformation, GRRM uses words like 'temper' and 'blacken' which might also be applicable to the process of forging a sword. Note, at the end of the process, she surfaces -- like a sword -- 'strong, new and fierce' ('rising harder and stronger,' etc.). Quote A Game of Thrones - Daenerys III Yet when she slept that night, she dreamt the dragon dream again. Viserys was not in it this time. There was only her and the dragon. Its scales were black as night, wet and slick with blood. Her blood, Dany sensed. Its eyes were pools of molten magma, and when it opened its mouth, the flame came roaring out in a hot jet. She could hear it singing to her. She opened her arms to the fire, embraced it, let it swallow her whole, let it cleanse her and temper her and scour her clean. She could feel her flesh sear and blacken and slough away, could feel her blood boil and turn to steam, and yet there was no pain. She felt strong and new and fierce. Thereafter, when she immerses herself in the 'hrakkar' skin -- the pelt of the white lion of the plains Drogo gifted her -- symbolically that can be seen as Dany the black sword embedded in the ice moon. Quote A Game of Thrones - Daenerys VI Khal Drogo did not want to hear it. "We will speak no more of wooden horses and iron chairs." He dropped the cloth and began to dress. "This day I will go to the grass and hunt, woman wife," he announced as he shrugged into a painted vest and buckled on a wide belt with heavy medallions of silver, gold, and bronze. "Yes, my sun-and-stars," Dany said. Drogo would take his bloodriders and ride in search of hrakkar, the great white lion of the plains. If they returned triumphant, her lord husband's joy would be fierce, and he might be willing to hear her out. Quote A Game of Thrones - Daenerys VI The brazier was cold again by the time Khal Drogo returned. Cohollo was leading a packhorse behind him, with the carcass of a great white lion slung across its back. Above, the stars were coming out. The khal laughed as he swung down off his stallion and showed her the scars on his leg where the hrakkar had raked him through his leggings. "I shall make you a cloak of its skin, moon of my life," he swore. This is another example of the 'interpenetrative' dynamic of which I spoke. Drogo succeeds in slaying the white lion (therefore the black sun penetrates the white moon), but not however without the lion 'raking him,' digging its claws into him 'through his leggings' (therefore the white and/or bleeding moon also penetrates the sun, and causes it to bleed in turn). Quote A Clash of Kings - Daenerys I She called her people together and mounted her silver mare. Her hair had burned away in Drogo's pyre, so her handmaids garbed her in the skin of the hrakkar Drogo had slain, the white lion of the Dothraki sea. Its fearsome head made a hood to cover her naked scalp, its pelt a cloak that flowed across her shoulders and down her back. The cream-colored dragon sunk sharp black claws into the lion's mane and coiled its tail around her arm, while Ser Jorah took his accustomed place by her side. "We follow the comet," Dany told her khalasar. Once it was said, no word was raised against it. They had been Drogo's people, but they were hers now. The Unburnt, they called her, and Mother of Dragons. Her word was their law. Another detail: Dany's Targaryen hair is 'silver.' When 'silver' burns -- i.e. oxidises -- it turns black! Therefore, Dany has become a black sword; and correspondingly her head and torso in the white lion skin can be thought of as the blade of the sword embedded in the lion's heart -- the white lion's heart. In other words, this is an example of the black meteor sword thrusting into the heart of the ice moon, what you've termed a 'heart transplant', whereby the lion's heart -- i.e. Dawn and likely original 'Ice' material -- has been extruded and replaced with Dany's 'black moon meteor sword' instead. According to the shifting 'interpenetrative' dynamic, you can see that Dany is doing the penetrating with respect to the 'hrakkar' which can be thought of as a vaginal analog with Dany functioning as sword-phallus. Thinking of Dany as the sword, the skin of the hrakkar serves as a sheath or scabbard, which was traditionally made of leather, wood, or even fur, so using the lion pelt for this symbolic function is apt: Quote From Wikipedia: A number of ancient scabbards have been recovered from weapons sacrifices, a few of which had a lining of fur on the inside. The fur was probably kept oily, keeping the blade free from rust. The fur would also allow a smoother, quicker draw. With Viserion additionally perched on top of Dany with his tail coiled around her arm, and claws anchoring the skin in place, we have a dizzying reiteration of the metaphor -- a scaly white beast functioning as her armor and Kings-/Queensguard (Viserion in the ice moon shell role) digging black claws (Viserion also playing black moon meteor...he seems a bit greedy wanting to play both parts in one!) into a white beast (Hrakkar or white lion -- ice moon) covering a black one (Dany the black dragon -- black moon meteor). With Viserion's tail coiled around her arm, we have additionally been given the hint of a moon meteor in addition to the moon from which it is derived, in that comets and meteors have tails, not moons. Dany is like an obsidian nugget buried in the depths of the hrakkar pelt which is analogous to: Quote The World of Ice and Fire - The Bones and Beyond: Yi Ti ...the God-on-Earth, the only begotten son of the Lion of Night and MaidenMade-of-Light, who traveled about his domains in a palanquin carved from a single pearl and carried by a hundred queens, his wives. With layers upon layers, it's like peeling an onion, suggesting as I've said before that Melisandre was wrong when she proclaimed that onions, (wo)men and by extrapolation moons could easily be divided into all 'light' vs all 'dark.' Incidentally, the following quote, although provided as an example of how Dany like a sword is undergoing forging, is the same you mentioned previously in which there's foreshadowing of someone, be it Bran, Arya or Dany, flying into space to 'reach up and touch the comet': Quote A Clash of Kings - Daenerys I Across the tent, Rhaegal unfolded green wings to flap and flutter a half foot before thumping to the carpet. When he landed, his tail lashed back and forth in fury, and he raised his head and screamed. If I had wings, I would want to fly too, Dany thought. The Targaryens of old had ridden upon dragonback when they went to war. She tried to imagine what it would feel like, to straddle a dragon's neck and soar high into the air. It would be like standing on a mountaintop, only better. The whole world would be spread out below. If I flew high enough, I could even see the Seven Kingdoms, and reach up and touch the comet. Irri broke her reverie to tell her that Ser Jorah Mormont was outside, awaiting her pleasure. "Send him in," Dany commanded, sand-scrubbed skin tingling. She wrapped herself in the lionskin. The hrakkar had been much bigger than Dany, so the pelt covered everything that wanted covering. 'The hrakkar had been much bigger than Dany' -- reflected by the body of the ice moon which dwarfs its foreign black moon meteor-embedded heart. Significantly, they're also two different species, with Dany symbolically penetrating, invading, or 'skinchanging' the lion. This is more foreshadowing for someone possibly 'skinchanging a comet' in order to divert it from its path. Tempering and maintaining a sword may involve 'sandpapering' or other sanding treatments, so Dany is practising proper sword care on herself with her 'sand-scrubbing' bath which leaves her 'tingling'! Quote A Storm of Swords - Daenerys IV The hours crept by on turtle feet. Even after Jhiqui rubbed the knots from her shoulders, Dany was too restless for sleep. Missandei offered to sing her a lullaby of the Peaceful People, but Dany shook her head. "Bring me Arstan," she said.When the old man came, she was curled up inside her hrakkar pelt, whose musty smell still reminded her of Drogo. "I cannot sleep when men are dying for me, Whitebeard," she said. "Tell me more of my brother Rhaegar, if you would. I liked the tale you told me on the ship, of how he decided that he must be a warrior." Note, Barristan Selmy aka 'Arstan' the 'Whitebeard' is also configured as a white lion; in fact, 'Arstan' means lion and his 'white beard' is like a white lion's mane. Quote Kyrgyz word арстан (arstan) meaning "lion" This shouldn't surprise us, since Kingsguard are frequently configured as white shadows or 'White Walkers.' In 'celestial' terms, the white Kingsguard shadowing, protecting or harboring the black King or Queen -- both covering and covering for them (as Barristan rues when contemplating his part in enabling Aerys' evil reign) -- is analogous to the ice moon sheltering the black moon meteor pulsing within like a heart of darkness. Another of the Kingsguard figures who is becoming a 'white lion' in particular is Ser Jaime Lannister, whose transformation from 'tawny' to 'white' lion is beginning to unsettle his tawny twin sister. Since losing his right hand, he's also growing a beard which is conspicuously 'silver' or 'grey' as Cersei notes -- which is basically the equivalent of a white lion's mane as I've said. The radiant glory of the mane, luxuriously surrounding a lion's head like the aureola around a heavenly body, is the symbol of an adult male lion's sexual and social prowess and marks him reaching maturity. Incidentally, when Dany dons the hrakkar around her head, having come into her own symbolically as an individual, she's mimicking having a mane and thus being an adult male white lion, in the same category as Barristan-Arstan or Jaime the quintessential black-hearted white knight. This is a further example of the 'gender inversion' I spoke about ('female' lunar taking on 'male' solar characteristics and vice versa). Quote A Feast for Crows - Jaime III I had hoped that by now you would have grown tired of that wretched beard. All that hair makes you look like Robert." If Jaime resembles Robert, the latter being a symbolic manifestation of the 'horned male fertility god'; and a beard resembles a mane; then perhaps being adorned with a crowning glory of a mane is not so different to wearing the antler headdress. The difference between the two is that Robert is a Summer king crowned in black; whereas Jaime as the inverse represents Winter's king crowned in white. Quote His sister had put aside her mourning for a jade-green gown with sleeves of silver Myrish lace. An emerald the size of a pigeon's egg hung on a golden chain about her neck."Robert's beard was black. Mine is gold." "Gold? Or silver?" Cersei plucked a hair from beneath his chin and held it up. It was grey. "All the color is draining out of you, brother. You've become a ghost of what you were, a pale crippled thing. And so bloodless, always in white." She flicked the hair away. "I prefer you garbed in crimson and gold." Jaime recognises this transformation in himself: Quote A Storm of Swords - Jaime VIII As pale as the room, Jaime sat by the book in his Kingsguard whites, waiting for his Sworn Brothers. A longsword hung from his hip. From the wrong hip. Before he had always worn his sword on his left, and drawn it across his body when he unsheathed. He had shifted it to his right hip this morning, so as to be able to draw it with his left hand in the same manner, but the weight of it felt strange there, and when he had tried to pull the blade from the scabbard the whole motion seemed clumsy and unnatural. His clothing fit badly as well. He had donned the winter raiment of the Kingsguard, a tunic and breeches of bleached white wool and a heavy white cloak, but it all seemed to hang loose on him. Jaime had spent his days at his brother's trial, standing well to the back of the hall. Either Tyrion never saw him there or he did not know him, but that was no surprise. Half the court no longer seemed to know him. I am a stranger in my own House. His son was dead, his father had disowned him, and his sister . . . she had not allowed him to be alone with her once, after that first day in the royal sept where Joffrey lay amongst the candles. Even when they bore him across the city to his tomb in the Great Sept of Baelor, Cersei kept a careful distance. He looked about the Round Room once more. White wool hangings covered the walls, and there was a white shield and two crossed longswords mounted above the hearth. The chair behind the table was old black oak, with cushions of blanched cowhide, the leather worn thin. Worn by the bony arse of Barristan the Bold and Ser Gerold Hightower before him, by Prince Aemon the Dragonknight, Ser Ryam Redwyne, and the Demon of Darry, by Ser Duncan the Tall and the Pale Griffin Alyn Connington. How could the Kingslayer belong in such exalted company? In terms of @Blue Tiger's heart/hearth pun, the white wool hangings, white shield and swords mounted over the color-contrasted hearth (where fire turns everything black) is a visual representation of what we saw with Dany surrounded or 'mounted' in a way by the 'white woolen', protective coat of the hrakkar. There's also a sexual connotation to the word 'mounted' which I won't elaborate on, suffice to say it emphasises that the union of fire and ice bodies, wherever they may be-- 'above or below' -- is configured as a wedding (in alchemy this is called the 'coincidentia oppositorum'). I love this passage generally (and Jaime is my favorite character and attending symbolism to unravel, although I write about Bran most of the time)-- especially the poignancy of Jaime's recognition that he's become a 'stranger' in this inverse world where day has turned to night (during the day, Jaime skulks in the shadows); and right and self-righteousness has been turned to left and self-doubt in an inverse mirror world he hardly recognises, in which which he's been left to ponder the difference alone. In the darkness, under the Red Keep, Jaime remarks 'a man takes much for granted when he has two hands' -- and I'd say that refers most of all to his 'golden' Lannister identity. Jaime is becoming a white lion -- paralleling the black dragon queen. Quote A Feast for Crows - Jaime I Jaime had led a dozen guards below, with torches and ropes and lanterns. For hours they had groped through twisting passages, narrow crawl spaces, hidden doors, secret steps, and shafts that plunged down into utter blackness. Seldom had he felt so utterly a cripple. A man takes much for granted when he has two hands. The white lion is the Stranger, with all the allusions including paranormal and celestial that implies. The Stranger is the 'thing that comes in the night'-- like a ghost in the darkness -- and there's nothing more frightening than a lion ambush in the dark (in fact, a movie was made about this, based on a true story about two lions in Kenya who acquired a taste for human flesh called 'The Ghost and the Darkness'). Reinforcing the symbolism of Jaime becoming the Stranger archetype, there's this scene in the Whispering Wood which I've highlighted previously in which the moonlight transforms Jaime into an 'Other' leading the charge of the Wild Hunt: Quote A Game of Thrones - Catelyn X She nodded as the woods grew still around them. In the quiet she could hear them, far off yet moving closer; the tread of many horses, the rattle of swords and spears and armor, the murmur of human voices, with here a laugh, and there a curse. Eons seemed to come and go. The sounds grew louder. She heard more laughter, a shouted command, splashing as they crossed and recrossed the little stream. A horse snorted. A man swore. And then at last she saw him … only for an instant, framed between the branches of the trees as she looked down at the valley floor, yet she knew it was him. Even at a distance, Ser Jaime Lannister was unmistakable. The moonlight had silvered his armor and the gold of his hair, and turned his crimson cloak to black. He was not wearing a helm. He was there and he was gone again, his silvery armor obscured by the trees once more. Others came behind him, long columns of them, knights and sworn swords and freeriders, three quarters of the Lannister horse. Jaime is transmuted into a weirwood by the moonlight; similarly, we can also think of the Others as moonlight-night-transformed weirwoods. As with the trees, the white becomes silver (like weirwood bark), and the red appears black at night (like weirwood leaves). There's still more to be unpacked here, but the goal of Jaime's transformation still remains very mysterious to me, so I'll leave it to you to take further should you be so inclined, and return to Dany. Quote A Dance with Dragons - Daenerys I "It is known," Irri agreed. It was Drogo who had given her the pelt she wore, the head and hide of a hrakkar, the white lion of the Dothraki sea. It was too big for her and had a musty smell, but it made her feel as if her sun-and-stars was still near her. Now, let's examine in more depth this 'hrakkar' or 'white lion', which is poetically associated with the 'sun and stars'; although this allusion may also refer to a more tangible celestial association, as per your ice-moon-meteor return theory. First off, it's interesting that the smell of the head and hide of the hrakkar, which rubs off on Dany, is 'musty,' indicating something rotten at the heart of any transformation, which we've previously identified (the poisoning for power trade-off). 'Hrakkar' is a Dothraki word, the root of which generates an interesting double meaning. Fittingly, it not only refers to a lion, but a sword! Quote hrakkar [hɾakˈkar] na. white lion hrakkarikh [hɾakkaˈrix] ni. powerful, quick and accurate sword strike From Dothraki Dictionary. Dany has indeed metamorphosed into a sword or lightning strike. Incidentally, white lions are not merely a figment of GRRM's fantasy; they actually exist in nature -- and they frequently have burning ice-blue eyes..! There's even been a book written on them examining the mythological background of these sacred animals called: Mystery of the White Lions: Children of the Sun God As 'children of the sun god', they may be conceived in (y)our mythical astronomy terms as icy moons harboring a dark fiery core -- and we might even call them 'Others' since they are 'the other lions,' relative to the normally encountered wild type. The reason the lions are white and not tawny is not due to albinism (recessive autosomal genetic abnormality causing loss of melanin pigment) but to 'leucism' (recessive autosomal genetic abnormality causing partial loss of multiple pigments, not exclusively melanin, due to a mutation in the case of the lions of the 'chutiya' gene or color inhibitor gene also called chinchilla mutation, distinct from that causing albinism). In the aforementioned article which I linked, there are a number of embedded links with pictures and text to a number of leucistic animals, including the lions (whitelions.org). As a matter of interest, the etymological root of this word 'leuco-' from the Greek 'leukos' means 'white' as well as 'light'; and -- need I tell you -- it's the also the root of the word Luke as well as 'Lucifer' which means 'Lightbringer' which means 'Dawn.' The mythology behind the return of the white lions is quite interesting. I say 'return', because there were doubts despite enduring rumors surrounding the white lions' existence until as recently as the 1970s, when they were definitively sighted by scientists again and captured for research and conservation purposes. Although these researchers touted their recent 'discovery', it must be said that according to indigenous African oral accounts the white lions are believed to be a much older phenomenon whose emergence is believed to have been coincident with an ancient meteoric event in that region -- Timbavati or Tsimbavati which means 'the place where star lions came down from the heavens.' What's more -- the return of the white lions seems to have been prophesied by local shamen and -women in the area! Quote Legends of the White Lions' existence have abounded for centuries among the indigenous people of this land, and the oral records of African elders indicate that these unique animals survived in this region for many centuries. In fact, some accounts indicate that the White Lions first appeared over 400 years ago, during the reign of Queen Numbi, during a time when a meteoric event occurred in the Timbavati region. And their reappearance during recent times was prophesied (and is considered significant) by these indigenous cultures. ... According to indigenous wisdom, the White Lions’ arrival at this particular moment in time and in this particular location is not coincidental. Indigenous people across the globe believe that everything in nature happens for a reason, and it is significant to note that the prophecies surrounding the White Lions correspond with the beliefs of ancient cultures on other continents. In fact, Zulu shamans and other African elders view the White Lions’ arrival in the wilderness as the fulfillment of an ancient prophecy, identifying these majestic creatures as "angelic messengers from God." African elders believe that the White Lions are the most sacred animals on the African continent and are here to deliver a sacred message for humanity during these times of great crisis. As an apex predator, the lion is viewed as the true guardian of the land; the White Lion, in particular, is believed to be the "King of Kings," an angelic guardian presiding over this sacred site, who has a a vital role in the sensitive ecology of this region and beyond. Though sightings of White Lions were first reported in the 1930s, scientists were unable to document their existence until they were spotted again in the mid 1970s. It is not clear exactly when the White Lions re-emerged, but by all accounts, this is a recent occurrence, and legend has it that the White Lions are, in fact star beings who came to our planet for specific spiritual purposes. Indeed, the name of this area—"Tsimba-vaati”—is derived from the ancient Shangaan language and means “the place where star lions came down from the heavens.” For many centuries, African kings identified the lands of Timbavati as a protected area. It falls on the Nile meridian (31 degrees East), a ley line which is also referred to as "Zep Tepi," believed to be the spot at which life first emerged on the planet. This area also happens to be exactly aligned with the great Sphinx of ancient Egypt, a representation of the fusion of human beings and lions, both considered to be at the apex of their respective kingdoms. Whether one believes in these legends or not, when in the presence of the White Lions, one cannot dispute that they are both majestic, and some would even say, magical. And spending time with them on their homelands of Timbavati is truly an unforgettable, life-changing experience. Above quote taken from background surrounding Timbavati lions. Linda Tucker, the author of the book 'Mystery of the White Lions: Children of the Sun God,' tells the story of how the birth of a specific white lion was prophesied by one of the African 'sangomas' or traditional spiritual healer-mystics. Strangely -- life is stranger than fiction, it would seem -- this white lion 'savior' representing a 'sign from the heavens' was born on Christmas day in an actual place called Bethlehem (the one in South Africa) and died like Christ at Easter: Quote Following an intuitive trail Linda was told that a female white lion was calling her from spirit and would be born somewhere significant. How would she find her? She’d be given a sign. When she heard that a female white cub had been born in a canned hunting camp in Bethlehem on Christmas Day in the year 2000, she knew this was the sign she’d been waiting for and set about saving her from being killed by a hunters extortionately priced bullet. This lion cub whose arrival was predicted by prophecies, was named Marah meaning ‘Mother of the Sun God’ and considered the most sacred animal on the planet at that time. Through Linda’s exceptional work and commitment she managed to save Marah after five years of campaigning and fund raising. She was found a home, with her three cubs, on the edge of Greater Timbavaati. Two years later she sadly died at Easter time, but not from any human intervention. Quote It was Maria Khosa, a powerful Sangoma also known as The Lion Queen of Timbavaati, who had walked through the lions that night. She had intuitively known Linda’s group were out there and needed her help. She explained how she spoke with the ancestors and through this dialogue was able to move at will among the lions. Throwing the bones for Linda she also foretold the vital part she had to play in the unfolding magical tale of these lustrous white creatures. She called her The Keeper of the White Lions. Credo Mutwa, the Lion Shaman, shared much of his White Lion wisdom with Linda. This humble man had made himself a pariah many years back when he chose to share the oral history of Africa with the world, believing this sacrilegious act was necessary in our present turbulent and destructive times. He said; ‘The White Lions of Timbavaati, the lions of the star that fell to earth, must not be allowed to vanish from the pages of our country’s history,’ and ‘they are very old beings – as old as time itself.’* Taken from: White Lions -- Stranger than Fiction 'Stranger' indeed..! Quote The White Lion in Mythology and Nature Accounts of white lions have been around for centuries in Africa, but have often been dismissed as superstition. It has been part of African folklore since prehistoric times and according to legend white lions were children of the Sun God, sent to earth as gifts. Oral traditions recalls the appearance of white lions over 400 years ago during the reign of Queen Numbi in the region now known as Timbavati. A shining star was seen to fall to the ground, but when Queen Numbi and her people approached, they found it to be a shining ball of metal, brighter than the sun. Queen Numbi, who was an elderly and infirm woman, was swallowed by its light and received by strange beings. When she emerged again, she had been restored to health and youth. The fallen star remained there for some days and then rose back into the sky. Animals with strange deformities were born in that region - cattle with 2 heads, white impala and green-eyed white leopards and lions. To this day, white animals are born in Timbavati, including a blue-eyed albino elephant that was shot by white hunters See for more on white lions. Some even suggest that the radiation attending the speculative 'meteoric event,' which transformed Queen Numbi after she fell within the fallen star's radius, may have been similarly responsible for inducing the genetic mutations producing the white lion variant and other rare animal phenotypes. Drogo's belief that killing the hrakkar would bring luck is contradicted by traditional African lore, whereby killing a white lion is held as sacrilege and an omen inviting and therefore portending future disaster on a planetary scale. ‘If you kill a White Lion, you kill the world,' according to an African proverb. Analogously, whoever was responsible for destroying the 'fire moon' and bringing down the first meteor strike upon the planet did not guarantee a prosperous future, especially considering the concomitant impalement of the second 'ice moon' innocent bystander (killing the white lion) by the 'shrapnel' emanating from the first explosion, which by all indications is likely to birth a second meteor strike. Drogo killing the sacred white lion of the Dothraki sea (basically like an African savannah) is a re-enactment of the fall-out from the sacreligious event which originally triggered the 'Doom' in Essos and the 'Breaking' in Westeros. If Dany enveloped in her hrakkar can be seen as the re-animation of the white lion, then her return to Westeros can be interpreted as the equivalent of the reanimated ice moon (the heart of the ice moon represents the remnant of the violation that was done to the fire moon by humans -- as she is both the fire moon's revenant and the ice moon's champion) returning to the planet in the form of a meteor strike -- and the blue-eyed white lion's savage revenge. This also means -- and this might surprise you -- that Dany is one of the 'Others'... In fact, she might just be the Great (M)other! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LmL Posted December 20, 2016 Author Share Posted December 20, 2016 1 hour ago, ravenous reader said: All vivid examples illustrating the paradigm-- great imaginative thinking as usual! Thanks for spending your precious time with all of these great comments, I am always excited to see a "RR commented on your thread" notification This is a great one!! 1 hour ago, ravenous reader said: I particularly like the image of the silver-haired Targaryen sitting in the middle of the black beast of the Iron Throne surrounding her like a thorny plant, which seems an inverse image to the greenseer (ever black-hearted of course, since we're no longer drawing a distinction between 'heretic' and 'non-heretic' greenseer) sitting in the middle of the white monster of the weirwood throne, which also happens to be quite a 'thorny' plant or temperamental 'see dragon' with a habit of sticking its tentacles into those who dare take up the seat of power. Really like this observation, the iron throne and the weirwood throne both stick the person sitting in them, that's good. That sticking is an insertion which symbolized the unification of sitter and sittee, I would say. The cool thing about the sea dragon is that it symbolizes both thrones, as do the Ironborn myth. The sea dragon is a weirwood throne and weirwood bones, and a dragon who is a greenseer, as we have discussed. But don't forget that the black meteors are sea dragons too, and the Ironborn also have an oily black stone throne and a black iron crown to match - and to stand as opposite to the weirwood throne and crown of the Grey King. The driftwood crown plays into the weirwood side, of course, which is why the driftwood throne of the Merling King on Driftmark works so well as a corollary to the Ironborn symbolism. In any case, just remember that the sea dragon is standing on a pile of dragon swords plunging into the tempering waters symbolism, and we have the oily stone chair to parallel the Iron Throne. Just as the Iron Throne is called a hulking black beast, the oily seastone chair is literally a black beast. 1 hour ago, ravenous reader said: According to this metaphor, in both circumstances the 'heart' can be seen as the bloom of the thorny plant -- not a separate entity, but integral to the functioning of the complex as a whole. You've called it a 'transplant', which is a good analogy; in plant terms that would be a 'graft.' Very cool. The net also symbolizes the female anatomy, so the thinner itself is kind of like net, a receiver, and the bloom is also like the seed being caught in the net or womb. The seed bonds to the womb of course, so it's the same thing as your plant graft and the heart transplant analogy. 1 hour ago, ravenous reader said: What's important to emphasize, however, and I think you may have touched on this before, is that people undergoing development in their 'arc' are fluid. In the course of their evolution, they may pass through several 'stages' or even occupy several at once, so they rarely conform to only one archetype or remain fixed in a rigid classification system. Accordingly, the paradigm also needs to be flexible enough to accommodate this fluidity and flux. A Targaryen character who starts out demonstrating the ice heart-within-the fire pattern might very well end up manifesting its opposite: as a fire heart-within-the ice. Yes, and I don't claim to fully understand this phenomena either - I have traced out the arcs of a few characters more than the rest, but you're comment here show that I still have many things left to put together, ha ha! White lions, this is great! But I'll wait my turn... 1 hour ago, ravenous reader said: I have a few points to make about Dany who seems to have undergone this transition, from lunar moon maid, to Nissa Nissa fiery moon, to black sword, and then again to black sword embedded in an icy white shell. Let me elaborate: A word pregnant with meaning if ever I saw one... 1 hour ago, ravenous reader said: When Dany steps into the fire of Drogo's pyre, she's figuratively a silver-white ice heart engulfed by a yellow-orange-and-red fiery shell, which can be understood in mythical astronomy terms as the moon and sun interpenetrating one another -- a 'marriage' (Dany even refers to it as a marriage or wedding twice), or in sword terms a 'forging'. Note how Dany steps into the fire, which is an analogy for the moon penetrating the sun. At the same time, Dany opens her arms to the flames so she simultaneously receives the flames and allows them to penetrate her, an analogy for the sun also penetrating the moon. The emoji I really want is two hands where one makes the "ok" sign and the other penetrates the o - the standard handling for the old in-out. Where is that emoji? Surely we are all adult enough to handle that. 1 hour ago, ravenous reader said: Once one starts talking in 'interpenetrative' terms, it's difficult to divide characters into clearly delineated 'male' and 'female' archetypes. Just as in the yin-yang symbol which I keep returning to as emblematic of GRRM's philosophy, the yin ('female' principle) and the yang ('male' principle) are both found within and surrounding the other simultaneously, as well as chasing each other's 'tails' eternally. There's a quote from Asha and Qarl the Maid (gender inversion name) where Asha can't tell who has the cock and who the cunt or whatever. I believe they are both moon people in that scene, simulating the breaking apart of the moon into three pieces - Tristifer is the third moon meteor. That's why there's that line where Asha asks Tris if he is cool with sailing off with Asha and Qarl, the three of them... ha ha. Anyway. 1 hour ago, ravenous reader said: The quote to follow is an example of the male-female interchangeability symbolically and a demonstration, as I break it down, of the pitfalls of adhering too strictly to rigid notions of 'male' vs. 'female', specifically in terms of who does the penetrating: Although it's Drogo's funeral pyre -- which can be thought of as a symbol of the male solar principle -- the flames are also described as fiery dancing women, so immediately there's a male-female duality emanating from the same source. When Dany steps into the fire she -- being the dragon she is -- simultaneously embodies the 'male solar' and 'female lunar' principles respectively, by igniting the fire and boldly entering it in the first place (a 'masculine' gesture of 'insemination'); and at the same time allowing Drogo's fire to claim her, impregnating her (in fact she thinks of having sex with him one last time as she's preparing to enter the fire or have it enter her...you see how it gets so intertwined and confusing if one fixates strictly on diametrically defined dichotomies!) I tend to be less specific, and just look at the whole scene as symbolizing the union of sun and moon - we see fiery female dancers and male sorcerers and stallions, all mixed together. Drogo and Dany are becoming one - very much melting metal language as I pointed out in my first Bloodstone compendium essay and as you mentioned here. Lightbringer represents the moon drinking the sun's fire, the child of sun and moon, that's the deal. Dany is indeed simultaneously playing the Azor Ahai reborn and Nissa NIssa role here - I picked up on the torch thrusting too. The same for Miir - she;s giving us NN's anguish and ecstasy wail that is in every LB forging scene, but Dany is of course the more important NN symbol. The dragon eggs themselves are also NN symbols... so I don't try to parse that out, usually - I see them all as Nissa Nissa fire moon symbols, showing us the various aspects of this burning fire moon. It's like a stone egg which pours forth dragons, it's like a sacrificial victim harvested for their magic, it's like someone stepping into the fire to be transformed, it's like a scream of pain and joy at once, it's like the forging of metal, it's the death of the moon and the sun, and on and on. So Martin is using all the stuff int he scene to reinforce the unifying idea, that's how I usually organize the information in a scene in my mind. There is more than one NN person here - Dany and Mirri - but that's ok, it's not a problem if you jus understand it is all being used to paint a portrait. However I like very much the you have picked up on this strain of specifically male, insertion symbolism with Dany here, very cool... 1 hour ago, ravenous reader said: After Dany exits Drogo's funeral pyre, she emerges burnt yet unburnt, the way a freshly-forged sword will emerge renewed, hard and intact from the fire. Here in a prophetic dream foreshadowing her transformation, GRRM uses words like 'temper' and 'blacken' which might also be applicable to the process of forging a sword. Note, at the end of the process, she surfaces -- like a sword -- 'strong, new and fierce' ('rising harder and stronger,' etc.). You have read my first essay, right? You'r recapping the bulk of the second half of it here... needless to say I agree, I was just checking. I have a lot of crap and I don't expect everyone to have read it all or anything. 1 hour ago, ravenous reader said: Thereafter, when she immerses herself in the 'hrakkar' skin -- the pelt of the white lion of the plains Drogo gifted her -- symbolically that can be seen as Dany the black sword embedded in the ice moon. OK. This is really cool. I think I am on board, but here's the problem with that: the lion is usually solar. The pelt reminds Dany of Drogo, obviously a solar character. That's not an insurmountable problem, but it has to be addressed. I had always taken Dany wearing the lion pelt after her rebirth as a symbol of her new "solar king" status... but I could be wrong. She is more directly identified with the reborn red comet, usually. I think she is still doing a moon thing from time to time later in the story, however. Like I said, I have not figured out what the rules are exactly pertaining to the entire arc of a character. Even if Dany has an overall 3 or 4 step arc, in any given scene, she might show us the basic fire moon mechanics. As for the white lion representing a sun, let's consider. There are a few examples of a weak, pale sun symbol. The sun of winter, for example, a white sunburst on black (paging @sweetsunray, lover of white dwarf stars). A winter sun is by definition a weaker, colder sun. As you point out, jaime is becoming a white lion, and he's frail and thin and emaciated to some extent, as you pointed out. Bloodraven - the white dragon - also shows us this idea, kind of. Bran as the underground sun, the Night Sun, is similar too - it's a sun symbol, but surrounded by darkness. Generally speaking, I associate the idea of the night sun as being black, a la the lion of night, a black marble statue of a man with a lion's head, and because AA reborn is like an inverted solar king, with a black crown instead of a golden one (golden points on a crown = sun's rays, so black crown = black sun). But I keep seeing this white, pale sun figure too... Of course, the Others have eyes like blue stars - and stars are suns. The Others themselves are more like shooting stars, meteors - they attack in a shower of cold stars, move and strike like lightning, they are "sword slim," etc. I believe they very much parallel the dragons as fire meteors idea - they are a wave of cold meteors. The col meteors are associated with white and blue, hence all the white sword symbolism of the KG who parallel the Others (seriously, I really need to put out my essay on the KG= Others thing, I have talked about it so much that it's spread around as a common idea but it's never been in one of my essays proper). Moon meteors caused by the impact of a solar comet work very well as sun/moon hybrid symbols, which is why they can be like suns and stars or like bits of moon. But how does a solar lion symbol become a symbol of the ice moon? Until the moon is struck, it doesn't have solar symbolism. I guess you could say because it swallowed a piece of sun fertilized fire moon, it's now got a bit of sun mojo.. that's the entire point of course... or maybe we just can't be rigid about "lion=sun" and it's as simple as that. The lunar halo does like like a mane on a misty night. I like to consider the prologue, and Weimar's face as a sky map. When he is struck by a needle from his shattered sword in one eye, that is the fire moon going out, the blinding of the god's eye or Array's eye, but right after that, his other eye lights up blue. It's kind of like a new sun, sorta? In the sense that a blue star is a sun. Finally, I'll add that I have long associated the ideas of white stars, white meteors, and white swords with ice moon meteors, the children of the ice moon. So these ideas aren't in conflict, if we can sort it out a bit. Oh: Craster's sons. "They'll be here soon - the sons." Haha. That was Gilly's mother telling Sam to get the F out of Craster's before the Others come. 1 hour ago, ravenous reader said: This is another example of the 'interpenetrative' dynamic of which I spoke. Drogo succeeds in slaying the white lion (therefore the black sun penetrates the white moon), but not however without the lion 'raking him,' digging its claws into him 'through his leggings' (therefore the white and/or bleeding moon also penetrates the sun, and causes it to bleed in turn). This would solve a very old mystery - where is Drogo's ice moon wife? Most solar kings have the two moon wives thing going, but not Drogo. If the white lion IS suppose to symbolize the ice moon, then this would be his ice moon bride. And no, a solar king NEVER gets off easy when he messes with a moon queen. 1 hour ago, ravenous reader said: Another detail: Dany's Targaryen hair is 'silver.' When 'silver' burns -- i.e. oxidises -- it turns black! cool, cool... 1 hour ago, ravenous reader said: Therefore, Dany has become a black sword; and correspondingly her head and torso in the white lion skin can be thought of as the blade of the sword embedded in the lion's heart -- the white lion's heart. In other words, this is an example of the black meteor sword thrusting into the heart of the ice moon, what you've termed a 'heart transplant', whereby the lion's heart -- i.e. Dawn and likely original 'Ice' material -- has been extruded and replaced with Dany's 'black moon meteor sword' instead. According to the shifting 'interpenetrative' dynamic, you can see that Dany is doing the penetrating with respect to the 'hrakkar' which can be thought of as a vaginal analog with Dany functioning as sword-phallus. Thinking of Dany as the sword, the skin of the hrakkar serves as a sheath or scabbard, which was traditionally made of leather, wood, or even fur, so using the lion pelt for this symbolic function is apt: Cool tidbit about fur lined scabbards. When Dany was found in the pyre afterward, she was covered in soot and ash.. a blackened and burnt bit of moon. I've been calling Jon snow AA reborn in an icy sheath for a long time, so essentially what you are saying is that Dany has this same symbolism. Very interesting. 1 hour ago, ravenous reader said: With Viserion additionally perched on top of Dany with his tail coiled around her arm, and claws anchoring the skin in place, we have a dizzying reiteration of the metaphor -- a scaly white beast functioning as her armor and Kings-/Queensguard (Viserion in the ice moon shell role) digging black claws (Viserion also playing black moon meteor...he seems a bit greedy wanting to play both parts in one!) into a white beast (Hrakkar or white lion -- ice moon) covering a black one (Dany the black dragon -- black moon meteor). With Viserion's tail coiled around her arm, we have additionally been given the hint of a moon meteor in addition to the moon from which it is derived, in that comets and meteors have tails, not moons. The white dragon in this scene strengthens your interpretation a lot. The white dragon curled around her represents the potential for white dragons to hatch from her, to spring forth from her. And you're telling me a quick sword strike is related to the word for white lion in Dothraki? That's another good one. In any case the white dragon was one of the first potential ice moon symbols I picked up on, although I am far from locked into that, as it could also be a part of the wan, pale sun thing I was describing. But purely speaking, a white dragon is a white sword is a white meteor, and white swords and white meteors are icy things. Some people have speculated that Viserion, the white dragon, might become a wight dragon, whenever the dragons and Others collide - perhaps this will be our ice dragon. In any case I would take Viserion's black claws as a symbol of the black meteor in the ice moon as opposed to him trying to show multiple things. 1 hour ago, ravenous reader said: Dany is like an obsidian nugget buried in the depths of the hrakkar pelt which is analogous to: The God on Earth, yes, this occurred to me too - especially after we were talking about pearls the other day and how they are started by a grain of dirt. That grain would be the black moon meteor, the pearl the ice moon. But the timeline doesn't make sense, with the God - E living long before the LN. 1 hour ago, ravenous reader said: With layers upon layers, it's like peeling an onion, suggesting as I've said before that Melisandre was wrong when she proclaimed that onions, (wo)men and by extrapolation moons could easily be divided into all 'light' vs all 'dark.' Incidentally, the following quote, although provided as an example of how Dany like a sword is undergoing forging, is the same you mentioned previously in which there's foreshadowing of someone, be it Bran, Arya or Dany, flying into space to 'reach up and touch the comet': 'The hrakkar had been much bigger than Dany' -- reflected by the body of the ice moon which dwarfs its foreign black moon meteor-embedded heart. Significantly, they're also two different species, with Dany symbolically penetrating, invading, or 'skinchanging' the lion. This is more foreshadowing for someone possibly 'skinchanging a comet' in order to divert it from its path. Ok, this is where we are getting somewhere. Forget the comet, think about how I was saying that the fire moon meteor is skinchanging the ice moon, filling it with cold fire - thats what Dany is doing exactly, wearing the lion's skin. Wearing skins is an obvious metaphor for skinchanging, so a remnant of burnt, reborn fire moon skinchanging a white lion... yeah that might be the jam. It might also mimic the idea of an AA reborn person - either the zombie father or the son - sitting in the white throne and becoming a greenseer. Going back to your flower petal idea, think about Bloodraven, a dragon person who wears black, sitting in the white throne. But that's the thing about BR, he's a white dragon, but also a black crow. How are we supposed to think of him? He was a white dragon first, then a black crow, then a pale white corpse in a white throne. Also, his dark grey attire is always called "smoke," and that's the same as Valyrian steel ("smoke dark"). Confusing. A white dragon wrapped in smoke is like Lightbringer before hitting Nissa Nissa - a white hot and smoking sword. But white meteors are also the children of the ice moon, so... Jon Snow is about to live inside a white shadow, Ghost, though of course Ghost has fiery red eyes and not cold blue ones. 1 hour ago, ravenous reader said: Tempering and maintaining a sword may involve 'sandpapering' or other sanding treatments, so Dany is practising proper sword care on herself with her 'sand-scrubbing' bath which leaves her 'tingling'! Note, Barristan Selmy aka 'Arstan' the 'Whitebeard' is also configured as a white lion; in fact, 'Arstan' means lion and his 'white beard' is like a white lion's mane. Now you are roping me in here, because the KG are DEFINITELY symbols of the Others. Jaime is a golden lion turned white lion who is an Other (KG), and Barristan is too huh? Great stuff. The idea of dragon or lion people becoming Kg (Others) is one of the things which began making me focus in on the idea of fire inside the ice moon. 1 hour ago, ravenous reader said: This shouldn't surprise us, since Kingsguard are frequently configured as white shadows or 'White Walkers.' In 'celestial' terms, the white Kingsguard shadowing, protecting or harboring the black King or Queen -- both covering and covering for them (as Barristan rues when contemplating his part in enabling Aerys' evil reign) -- is analogous to the ice moon sheltering the black moon meteor pulsing within like a heart of darkness. Yes, something like that. Visenya was Aegon's ice moon queen, and she made the KG, just as the Corpse Queen made Others. The Others are always made by a black dragon and an ice moon woman - Rhaegar has extensive parallels to the NK, with Lyanna as his ice moon queen. At the Tower of Joy, we have three ice moon meteor symbols which leave the tower with Eddard - Dawn, the white sword; Lyanna's bones (bones of the ice moon); and baby Jon, the child of a black dragon and an ice moon queen. AA reborn in an icy sheath. In parallel, we have three dead KG knights out front, with the white bull and white tower symbolism of Gerold adding to the ice moon symbolism. If we think about the KG as icy armor, consider that they were created to guard dragons. The King, or his royal family - all dragons. 1 hour ago, ravenous reader said: Another of the Kingsguard figures who is becoming a 'white lion' in particular is Ser Jaime Lannister, whose transformation from 'tawny' to 'white' lion is beginning to unsettle his tawny twin sister. Since losing his right hand, he's also growing a beard which is conspicuously 'silver' or 'grey' as Cersei notes -- which is basically the equivalent of a white lion's mane as I've said. Yep, all terrific stuff here. 1 hour ago, ravenous reader said: The radiant glory of the mane, luxuriously surrounding a lion's head like the aureola around a heavenly body, is the symbol of an adult male lion's sexual and social prowess and marks him reaching maturity. Incidentally, when Dany dons the hrakkar around her head, having come into her own symbolically as an individual, she's mimicking having a mane and thus being an adult male white lion, in the same category as Barristan-Arstan or Jaime the quintessential black-hearted white knight. This is a further example of the 'gender inversion' I spoke about ('female' lunar taking on 'male' solar characteristics and vice versa). If Jaime resembles Robert, the latter being a symbolic manifestation of the 'horned male fertility god'; and a beard resembles a mane; then perhaps being adorned with a crowning glory of a mane is not so different to wearing the antler headdress. The difference between the two is that Robert is a Summer king crowned in black; whereas Jaime as the inverse represents Winter's king crowned in white. A white stag or a white hart would be the same idea, and of course 'hart/heart' pulls double duty to imply the heart of a star.. Remember that Robert went hunting for a white hart, and got close, but found the black devil boar instead. Then we have the action at the Battle of the Blackwater where Davos Ahai and his Black Betha lock up with White Hart and successfully board her. But that time, the white heart is the Lightbinrger meteor, the white hot and smoking sword, I am sure - because really what happens here is that White Heart is attacking BB, striking her first. Then Black Betha really swallow up WH - BB takes it over but does not lose her own ship. They become the calm eye of the storm - the God's Eye, right before the explosion - and right after that is when the Swordfish spears the Lannister hulk and unleashes the wildfire explosion. BB tries to disengage from WH, and as it does, the explosion happens - Davos hears a woof in his ear, and then there is a roar, the deck vanishes beneath him, and he is hit by black water. The green demon is born. (And BTW, I just noticed the green demon was born from a Lannister "hulk" - haha, as in The Hulk of Marvel Comics, a green monster. HAHAHAHA. It even says "Swordfish and the hulk were gone... fifty feet high, a swirling demon of green flames danced upon the river") So, the collision of the WH and BB here are the LB comet and the fire moon, coming right before the big KABOOM. This is where the confusion comes - white sword can be pre-NN LB or ice moon meteors. 1 hour ago, ravenous reader said: Jaime recognises this transformation in himself: In terms of @Blue Tiger's heart/hearth pun, the white wool hangings, white shield and swords mounted over the color-contrasted hearth (where fire turns everything black) is a visual representation of what we saw with Dany surrounded or 'mounted' in a way by the 'white woolen', protective coat of the hrakkar. There's also a sexual connotation to the word 'mounted' which I won't elaborate on, suffice to say it emphasises that the union of fire and ice bodies, wherever they may be-- 'above or below' -- is configured as a wedding (in alchemy this is called the 'coincidentia oppositorum'). The thing you missed is the black oak chairing the middle of all that white. Under the black oak chair is the black sword Oathkeeper, which he gives to Brienne, a symbol of an ice moon maiden who swallowed a black sword. So that scene is super fractal, imo. It's all about the fire inside the ice moon. Jaime shows us that idea, and his black chair and back sword do too. Then he gives it to Brienne, and it's more of the same. I love this scene too, for those reasons. 1 hour ago, ravenous reader said: I love this passage generally (and Jaime is my favorite character and attending symbolism to unravel, although I write about Bran most of the time)-- especially the poignancy of Jaime's recognition that he's become a 'stranger' in this inverse world where day has turned to night (during the day, Jaime skulks in the shadows); and right and self-righteousness has been turned to left and self-doubt in an inverse mirror world he hardly recognises, in which which he's been left to ponder the difference alone. In the darkness, under the Red Keep, Jaime remarks 'a man takes much for granted when he has two hands' -- and I'd say that refers most of all to his 'golden' Lannister identity. Jaime is becoming a white lion -- paralleling the black dragon queen. The white lion is the Stranger, with all the allusions including paranormal and celestial that implies. The Stranger is the 'thing that comes in the night'-- like a ghost in the darkness -- and there's nothing more frightening than a lion ambush in the dark (in fact, a movie was made about this, based on a true story about two lions in Kenya who acquired a taste for human flesh called 'The Ghost and the Darkness'). Terrific movie. I have always seen the stranger as blackness, darkness itself - a shadow with two stars for eyes. Those star eyes are the white shadows, though, the white lions / Others. The Warrior's Sons have crystal swords on black for their sigil, just like the others swords at night. That's the same image here. The white lions would be the swords, the white swords. 1 hour ago, ravenous reader said: Reinforcing the symbolism of Jaime becoming the Stranger archetype, there's this scene in the Whispering Wood which I've highlighted previously in which the moonlight transforms Jaime into an 'Other' leading the charge of the Wild Hunt: Jaime is transmuted into a weirwood by the moonlight; similarly, we can also think of the Others as moonlight-night-transformed weirwoods. As with the trees, the white becomes silver (like weirwood bark), and the red appears black at night (like weirwood leaves). Just realized that the black hands by night thing implies the white trees as wight trees, with bloody hands that have turned to black hands, like the wights. I like it! This wight tree thing has legs, if you know what I mean, oh man I am dying from pun overload! Egads! But getting back the scene, we have Robb with his helmet full of darkness and his smoke dark wolf, the King of Winter... against Jaime the Other. But Robb's forces are tree warriors too, hiding in the trees and hiding their weapons under leaves. Consider the Whispering Woods (weirwoods) as a Garth trap. Jamie is the one trapped in the WW, and turned into an Other. Could that be talking about trapping fire people - lions or stags - in the weirwoodnet, which eventually manifested as the Others coming back out of there weirwoodnet? When Jaime was invested into the KG, it was at the scene of the Harrenhall tourney - the place where Rhaegar put his black lance into Lyann's lap, and into her blue rose halo crown. In other words, that tourney represents the ice moon getting preggers, which is the idea of Jaime becoming a KG. Lyanna even puts on armor and becomes a weirwood knight, the KOTLT. Weirwood knights come from ice moons, in other words. What I think is going on here is that there are two kinds of tree warriors. The Others, and resurrected greenseers / skinchangers. The undead skinchangers are tree people who serve the king of winter - the original NW. The Others serve the Night's King, or the Great Other, etc. A black dragon figure, just as the KG guard the Targ kings. In other words, the black dragon has white shadow tree soldiers, and the white dragon should be the head of the NW, of the black shadow tree soldiers. BR was a white dragon, and you could see Jon that way too, being a dragon called Snow with a weir-wolf at his side. Mormont was a white-haired silver bear, maybe that works too. 1 hour ago, ravenous reader said: There's still more to be unpacked here, but the goal of Jaime's transformation still remains very mysterious to me, so I'll leave it to you to take further should you be so inclined, and return to Dany. Now, let's examine in more depth this 'hrakkar' or 'white lion', which is poetically associated with the 'sun and stars'; although this allusion may also refer to a more tangible celestial association, as per your ice-moon-meteor return theory. First off, it's interesting that the smell of the head and hide of the hrakkar, which rubs off on Dany, is 'musty,' indicating something rotten at the heart of any transformation, which we've previously identified (the poisoning for power trade-off). 'Hrakkar' is a Dothraki word, the root of which generates an interesting double meaning. Fittingly, it not only refers to a lion, but a sword! From Dothraki Dictionary. Dany has indeed metamorphosed into a sword or lightning strike. Very cool. Works well with the whole dragon = sword thing. Lighting however is an interesting symbol - it tracks to the Others very closely. They move like lightning and strike like lighting and when they break a sword, it looks like a tree struck by lightning. The wooden stair on the Wall is like a wooden thunderbolt, and catches on fire. Lightning itself is blue and white and purple, so works well as a symbol of cold or blue fire, like the Others. But lighting is also connected to Beric, the hammer of the gods / Storm King / Thor's hammer stuff, and to the burning tree / Grey King story. In other words, I don't have it all sorted out yet. 1 hour ago, ravenous reader said: Incidentally, white lions are not merely a figment of GRRM's fantasy; they actually exist in nature -- and they frequently have burning ice-blue eyes..! Damn, now you got me. Where is @Blue Tiger??? 1 hour ago, ravenous reader said: There's even been a book written on them examining the mythological background of these sacred animals called: Mystery of the White Lions: Children of the Sun God As 'children of the sun god', they may be conceived in (y)our mythical astronomy terms as icy moons harboring a dark fiery core -- and we might even call them 'Others' since they are 'the other lions,' relative to the normally encountered wild type. The reason the lions are white and not tawny is not due to albinism (recessive autosomal genetic abnormality causing loss of melanin pigment) but to 'leucism' (recessive autosomal genetic abnormality causing partial loss of multiple pigments, not exclusively melanin, due to a mutation in the case of the lions of the 'chutiya' gene or color inhibitor gene also called chinchilla mutation, distinct from that causing albinism). In the aforementioned article which I linked, there are a number of embedded links with pictures and text to a number of leucistic animals, including the lions (whitelions.org). As a matter of interest, the etymological root of this word 'leuco-' from the Greek 'leukos' means 'white' as well as 'light'; and -- need I tell you -- it's the also the root of the word Luke as well as 'Lucifer' which means 'Lightbringer' which means 'Dawn.' Alright, not sure if GRRM knows all that, but very interesting for its own sake. 1 hour ago, ravenous reader said: The mythology behind the return of the white lions is quite interesting. I say 'return', because there were doubts despite enduring rumors surrounding the white lions' existence until as recently as the 1970s, when they were definitively sighted by scientists again and captured for research and conservation purposes. Although these researchers touted their recent 'discovery', it must be said that according to indigenous African oral accounts the white lions are believed to be a much older phenomenon whose emergence is believed to have been coincident with an ancient meteoric event in that region -- Timbavati or Tsimbavati which means 'the place where star lions came down from the heavens.' What's more -- the return of the white lions seems to have been prophesied by local shamen and -women in the area! Above quote taken from background surrounding Timbavati lions. Of course, there is a Lannister ship called Lionstar, which carries a moon maiden to Sunspear in a recreation of the Hammer of the Waters moon meteor - a lionstar or a sunspear or a bloodstone - falling on the arm of Dorne. 1 hour ago, ravenous reader said: Linda Tucker, the author of the book 'Mystery of the White Lions: Children of the Sun God,' tells the story of how the birth of a specific white lion was prophesied by one of the African 'sangomas' or traditional spiritual healer-mystics. Strangely -- life is stranger than fiction, it would seem -- this white lion 'savior' representing a 'sign from the heavens' was born on Christmas day in an actual place called Bethlehem (the one in South Africa) and died like Christ at Easter: Wow, that's almost too much to comprehend. Lionstar Jesus! 1 hour ago, ravenous reader said: Taken from: White Lions -- Stranger than Fiction 'Stranger' indeed..! See for more on white lions. Some even suggest that the radiation attending the speculative 'meteoric event,' which transformed Queen Numbi after she fell within the fallen star's radius, may have been similarly responsible for inducing the genetic mutations producing the white lion variant and other rare animal phenotypes. Drogo's belief that killing the hrakkar would bring luck is contradicted by traditional African lore, whereby killing a white lion is held as sacrilege and an omen inviting and therefore portending future disaster on a planetary scale. ‘If you kill a White Lion, you kill the world,' according to an African proverb. It did not portend good luck for Drogo, I'd say. He was wounded in battle shortly thereafter. 1 hour ago, ravenous reader said: Analogously, whoever was responsible for destroying the 'fire moon' and bringing down the first meteor strike upon the planet did not guarantee a prosperous future, especially considering the concomitant impalement of the second 'ice moon' innocent bystander (killing the white lion) by the 'shrapnel' emanating from the first explosion, which by all indications is likely to birth a second meteor strike. Drogo killing the sacred white lion of the Dothraki sea (basically like an African savannah) is a re-enactment of the fall-out from the sacreligious event which originally triggered the 'Doom' in Essos and the 'Breaking' in Westeros. If Dany enveloped in her hrakkar can be seen as the re-animation of the white lion, then her return to Westeros can be interpreted as the equivalent of the reanimated ice moon (the heart of the ice moon represents the remnant of the violation that was done to the fire moon by humans -- as she is both the fire moon's revenant and the ice moon's champion) returning to the planet in the form of a meteor strike -- and the blue-eyed white lion's savage revenge. This also means -- and this might surprise you -- that Dany is one of the 'Others'... In fact, she might just be the Great (M)other! That's really cool. In other words, the Corpse Queen - which is the ice moon - can be viewed as NN's corpse, perhaps. More like NN's spirit in a new host body. That's what is happening when Damon Targaryen leaps form the red dragon onto the white dragon Vhagar and stabs Aemond One Eye through his star sapphire eye with dark sister. Dark sister is the fire moon black meteor lodged in the ice moon, which is a white dragon with a blue eye. The Serwyn of the Mirror Shield story juggles it around a bit. Serwyn is the ice moon, the KG. Urrax and his dragon eye are the God's Eye sun-moon conjunction. Serwyn's spear is the comet, and he is seen as striking the fire moon while it is infant of the sun. BUT, he is haunted by the ghosts of those he slew. The fire moon haunts him. That's a representation of the fire moon piece haunting the ice moon. As a final note on Jaime, he does dream on a weirwood stump of wielding a sword of "pale flame" and "silvery-blue" flame. That's more pale fire / silvery blue lighting fire symbolism. Very opposite of the v steel symbolism. Thanks for the great comments @ravenous reader! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sweetsunray Posted December 20, 2016 Share Posted December 20, 2016 @LmL There are indeed mythologies where there are two solar figures - a summer sun and winter sun - in particular the Norse, Germanic and Celtic mythologies. Classically the Irish Llud for example is identified as a solar god, because hundred years ago and longer ago people sought for parallels with Roman and Greek mythologies, including the Romans themselves when they gave certain Celtic and Germanic gods epiteths. It seems though more and more that in those cultures the solar figures were goddesses and the moon was a god. For the Celts and Gauls the solar goddess was linked to the horse: and thus Epona, Brighid, Rhionan are probably solar goddesses. The Norse-Germanic solar goddesses were Aine and Graine, with Aine the summer sun and Graine the winter sun. It's not surprising that Northern European mythologies would make a distinction between the two, because the summer sun barely sets in summer, whereas the winter sun barely rises in winter, and is thus certainly an underworldly sun, like the Egyptian night sun - except that with the Egyptians the underworld sun is a nightly sun, but with the Norse it's a seasonal underworld sun as it would be night almost for weeks if not months depending your northern position. Anyway, there is certainly logic behind having dual sun symbols as much as there for having dual evenstart/morningstar symbolism. And this could not be just expressed in the color of the lion symbol (pale or dark), but for the Egyptians Re becomes Re-Atun in the underworld most of the time and has a ram's head, or the old-man figure with a cane. Atun was the creator of the world for the Egyptians, but when he was old he had grown so weary he wished to destroy his creation. At the surface the Lannisters have a definite solar symbolism, because of the gold and the lions. But consider where George located them - in the Westerlands, beyond the pass of the Golden Tooth. The sun sets in the west, between two mountains (or a pass), the first gate of the underworld in the Book of Amnu and Coffin Texts. The night sun starts it underworld journey in the west. And thus inherently, George enabled the Lannisters to be underworld night lions, with the geographical location, calling it the Westerlands and having that Golden Tooth pass. With all the gate stuff I explain in Them Bones, I'm quite certain that tWoW prologue with Jeyne Westerling will take place in the pass of the Golden Tooth. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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