Heresy 193 Winterfell

[Black Crow]

I'd just add to this interesting line of thinking that GRRM has his own Mountains of the Moon surrounding the Vale of Arryn [and of course the Moon Brothers] and while there's no reason as yet to see any significance in his naming of them it does demonstrate his familiarity with the real ones.

[LynnS]

7 minutes ago, Black Crow said:

I'd just add to this interesting line of thinking that GRRM has his own Mountains of the Moon surrounding the Vale of Arryn [and of course the Moon Brothers] and while there's no reason as yet to see any significance in his naming of them it does demonstrate his familiarity with the real ones.

Indeed!  I think the construction of Eyrie with it's own waystations (castles) is allegory.  But that's another thread.  His geography and geology is a mash-up. 

[Black Crow]

An allegory indeed, but why wait for another thread. If we have a stairway to Hell in the heart of Winterfell, what of the climb to the Eyrie?

[Frey family reunion]

5 hours ago, ravenous reader said:

Now I'm thinking about the 'Mother of Mountains...the Womb of the World' (and no, it's conclusive, with your Qartheen-breast analogy you have definitively proved once-and-for-all that you do not lack imagination! )

If you want a reference to the "Mother of Mountains", and falling celestial bodies, look to the Antolian/Greek/Roman goddess, Cybele or Kybele.  She has been roughly translated to "Mountain Mother" or "Mother of Mountains" in her Antolian phase.  The legend goes that after a series of misfortunes to Rome (including a meteor shower) the goddess and her cult were brought to Rome.  Allegedly, they brought a black meteor from Pessios (from her Antolian homeland, present day Turkey) to Rome which was supposed to represent the goddess.  The black meteor was carved into a likeness of her face after being brought to Rome.  In Rome she became the Magna Mater (Great Mother).

[ravenous reader]

1 hour ago, Frey family reunion said:

If you want a reference to the "Mother of Mountains", and falling celestial bodies, look to the Antolian/Greek/Roman goddess, Cybele or Kybele.  She has been roughly translated to "Mountain Mother" or "Mother of Mountains" in her Antolian phase.  The legend goes that after a series of misfortunes to Rome (including a meteor shower) the goddess and her cult were brought to Rome.  Allegedly, they brought a black meteor from Pessios (from her Antolian homeland, present day Turkey) to Rome which was supposed to represent the goddess.  The black meteor was carved into a likeness of her face after being brought to Rome.  In Rome she became the Magna Mater (Great Mother).

Wonderful!  I've been (only half-) quipping for some time that Dany is the Great (m)Other! 

[wolfmaid7]

On 1/1/2017 at 2:04 PM, Black Crow said:

But yet greenseers are so few and far between. The children of Winterfell are wargs certainly, and Bran is becoming a greenseer, but not the others. Being a powerful warg does not a greenseer make.

6 Wargs in one household isn't strange.If we look at what makes a greenseer.

1. Bloodrave to Bran "Your blood makes you a greenseer" Bran isn't "becoming" one he already is one.

If we look at what a greenseer is. Skinchanger who dreams prophetically.Then thus far that's Bran,Jon,Rickon..Can't rememer if Arya or Sansa is having any,but i think all the Stark kids are greenseers by blood.

 

 

[Black Crow]

22 minutes ago, wolfmaid7 said:

6 Wargs in one household isn't strange.If we look at what makes a greenseer.

1. Bloodrave to Bran "Your blood makes you a greenseer" Bran isn't "becoming" one he already is one.

If we look at what a greenseer is. Skinchanger who dreams prophetically.Then thus far that's Bran,Jon,Rickon..Can't rememer if Arya or Sansa is having any,but i think all the Stark kids are greenseers by blood.

 

 

They were born with the potential to be wargs by blood but even then that had to be triggered by sending each of them a direwolf.

Rickon was later visited by his dead father, which may be a green dream, but a clear distinction is drawn between wargs, greendreamers and greenseers. Bran is becoming a greenseer because he has been taken north and fed the paste. Yes he has the wolf blood, and he has the wolf and he has vulnerability but he doesn't have the red or the green eyes. He was born with the potential to become a greenseer but that's not the same thing at all as there being a whole family of greenseers and its also a managed process - presumably because he's human.

Indeed we could well question whether any humans are born as wargs by blood - Varamyr commented that none of his many bastards had the gift - or whether its an external process triggered by the beast and in the case of Bryn and now Bran, managed externally.

[Voice]

1 hour ago, wolfmaid7 said:

6 Wargs in one household isn't strange.If we look at what makes a greenseer.

1. Bloodrave to Bran "Your blood makes you a greenseer" Bran isn't "becoming" one he already is one.

 

No it's strange.

If we look at all that Bloodraven said, then yes, 6 wargs in a single family is quite unique. I did the math at the Hearth recently:

 

In asoiaf, weirwood influences seem far less widespread, far more subtle, and far more selective. 

Rather than inhabit the minds of everyone in proximity, a weirwood must be wed by one with the gift. And one with the gift is incredibly rare. 
 

Quote

"Only one man in a thousand is born a skinchanger," Lord Brynden said one day, after Bran had learned to fly, "and only one skinchanger in a thousand can be a greenseer." 

 

That provides us with some easy math. 

Skinchanger:Population
1:1000

= 0.1% of men are skinchangers. 

Greenseer:Skinchanger-Population
1:1000

= 0.1% of skinchangers are greenseers.

Thus, if we apply these porportions to how many men can be greenseers, we get:

Greenseer:Population
1:1,000,000

= 0.0001 % of men are greenseers.

That's one ten-thousanth of one percent of the population who are greenseers.

[side note: this ratio may mean that the population of Westeros is between 1 and 2 million people, as it currently yields between 1 and 2 greenseers] 

So why did I do all this math? In ASTNKM, every clan has its "Talker" and every clan numbers 20-30, half of which are adults and half of which are children. Even if we include the children, that means 3.33% to 5% of Jaenshi are Talkers. That is a far more potent ratio of influence than we see in asoiaf, except....

We have a GINORMOUS concentration of this influence in the current generation of youngsters from Winterfell. 6/6 are wargs, to varying degrees. Of the six, at least one is a bona fide greenseer. That's pretty damned impressive. 

Considering only two Starks in the previous generation were even said to have "wolf-blood" then that certainy seems to suggest something occurred in the current generation to increase this concentration. 

It seems as though 100% of the Kings of Winter were also wargs, unless people were lying when scuplting all those dead Starks. I don't think they were... at least, not until 200 years ago. 

So, crackpot alert, I'm thinking Starks once had a far greater concentration of this influence than other First Men families. I have a hunch that their Godswood was always and ever-inhabited by a Stark Greenseer. And I think that this is what the "There must always be a Stark in Winterfell" mantra is all about. 

To crack the pot further, I think Lyanna was the last Stark with the gift in her blood, and that it was incredibly strong. (See A Song for Lya)

I don't think she lived long enough to take root beneath WF's godswood, but I do think she was able to send the kids those direwolf pups. (I believe the dead mother wolf was hers, in spirit, if not in life.) 

And, just to make sure this pot is thoroughly broken, I believe it is Lyanna who is beckoning Jon deeper and deeper into crypts in his dreams...

Not the weirnet. Not the Others. Not the cotf. It's his mom. 

I have offered the alternative crackpot before that Lyanna is, like Bloodraven, residing in the roots of WF's heart tree... but I don't want to see her like that. So I've whittled this crackpot down to the essentials:  Lyanna's consciousness is in WF's heart tree, along with all those buried in WF's sidhe cave/cotf hollow crypts. 



Read more: http://thelasthearth.com/thread/1195/1000-worlds-times-never-man?page=2#ixzz4UyF092Jo

[Brad Stark]

1 in 1000 born a Warg does not imply everyone has an equal chance, just out of 6000 people, we'd expect 6 Wargs.

I don't think the Stark kids were all born Wargs.  Neither Ned nor Cat showed any indication of being Wargs.

I like the idea of the Direwolf at the start being Warged, especially as a second life.

[Black Crow]

8 hours ago, Voice said:

 

No it's strange.

If we look at all that Bloodraven said, then yes, 6 wargs in a single family is quite unique. I did the math at the Hearth recently:

 

A splendid bit of math too. I disagree that Jon is being summonsed by his mother I think its something much deeper than that, but you are absolutely right about the rarity of greenseers

[Black Crow]

2 hours ago, Brad Stark said:

1 in 1000 born a Warg does not imply everyone has an equal chance, just out of 6000 people, we'd expect 6 Wargs.

I don't think the Stark kids were all born Wargs.  Neither Ned nor Cat showed any indication of being Wargs.

I like the idea of the Direwolf at the start being Warged, especially as a second life.

They don't have an equal chance, and as I said earlier that line - which appears at least twice - about the Gods sending the direwolves and the children of Winterfell being meant to have them is significant. Without the direwolves the generations would have continued to roll by without wargs, far less that we should have a whole family of greenseers when singly they are so uncommon.

[Black Crow]

Just an irreverent point which I can't resist.

We've seen that Bran required the weirwood paste [with our without added blood] to begin the induction process as a greenseer.

To become wargs did they need to be licked by their direwolves, ie; did the induction require doggy saliva? 

[LmL]

1 hour ago, Black Crow said:

Just an irreverent point which I can't resist.

We've seen that Bran required the weirwood paste [with our without added blood] to begin the induction process as a greenseer.

To become wargs did they need to be licked by their direwolves, ie; did the induction require doggy saliva? 

Kidding aside, it's quite possible that the Stark children never would have realized they were skin changers unless they got those wolves, or perhaps  some other very close pet. I mean even with the wolves, Robb does not appear to have learned how to share his wolf's skin. With Lady dead, Sansa never learned either.  In other words, we have no idea at all how many First Men blooded Westerosi may have latent skinchanger abilities. The Starks might never have realized they were skinchangers if not for the direwolves. It could be that the magical nature of the dire wolves encouraged the bond to flourish, but Arya's experience with the cat in the HOB&W makes us wonder if it could have happened with other animals. Point being, the Starks might have never stopped carrying skinchanger ability, but rather stopped using it for various reasons. It makes a lot more sense, I think, than supposing the Starks just somehow spit out a whole generation of skinchangers because the plot needs it to. As Bloodraven says, Bran's blood makes him a greenseer, but a greenseer isn't really a full greenseer until he is wedded to the trees. Sounds like a two step process, requiring the genetic talent as well as the training. Just like in real life! You need talent and hard work to be the best at something.

 

[OtherFromAnotherMother]

12 hours ago, wolfmaid7 said:

Can't rememer if Arya or Sansa is having any,but i think all the Stark kids are greenseers by blood.

From Arya III, SoS:

Quote

Warm and dry in a corner between Gendry and Harwin, Arya listened to the singing for a time, then closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep. She dreamt of home; not Riverrun, but Winterfell. It was not a good dream, though. She was alone outside the castle, up to her knees in mud. She could see the grey walls ahead of her, but when she tried to reach the gates every step seemed harder than the one before, and the castle faded before her, until it looked more like smoke than granite. And there were wolves as well, gaunt grey shapes stalking through the trees all around her, their eyes shining. Whenever she looked at them, she remembered the taste of blood.

I'm not sure if this qualifies as a "greendream" because Winterfell has already already been burned at this point.

But this couldn't be from Nymeria's eyes either, right? Could Nymeria have gone all the way to Winterfell since we see her attack some of the Bloody Mummers after Arya escapes from Harrenhal? 

Could it be foreshadowing of something else? 

[Brad Stark]

The Kings of Winter and Kings of the North all have direwolves.   Not 1 in 1000 Kings, not most Kings, all.

[Brad Stark]

If Bran's blood makes him a greenseer, is it inherited from Ned, Cat, or did it require both?

[Frey family reunion]

5 minutes ago, Brad Stark said:

The Kings of Winter and Kings of the North all have direwolves.   Not 1 in 1000 Kings, not most Kings, all.

Well technically they all have direwolves carved on their tombs, that doesn't mean they were wargs.  It seems the Starks liked to carve direwolves on things, like their throne/seat.  But my guess is if we go to Casterly Rock, we'd see a lot of lions carved on things perhaps even their tombs, doesn't necessarily mean anything.  Nor does there appear to be any legends about the Starks being wargs which I find unusual.  Because it seems like quite the topic of conversation about the current Stark kids being wargs.  If skinchanging has a genetic component, then we need to find out if the Starks either historically married brother to sister, or at least first cousin back into the main line.  If so, then perhaps they knew that they had a magical bloodline that had to be kept in the family.  Otherwise being a Stark after a while becomes significant in name only.  Unless there is some paternal trait that is always passed down father to son, and there is an unbroken paternal line in the history of the Stark family.  (and if the legend of Bael has some truth to it, then we know it didn't).

3 minutes ago, Brad Stark said:

If Bran's blood makes him a greenseer, is it inherited from Ned, Cat, or did it require both?

Assuming that GRRM is using very simple Mendellian genetics, my guess is it requires at least a recessive gene from both parents, considering that Varamyr noted that none of his runts showed the gift, one parent having the trait may not be enough. Let's take the Baratheon, Lannister example and assume that black hair is dominant and blonde hair is recessive (not technically correct but for the sake of this example bear with me).   Two black haired parents can have a kid with blonde hair if both parents had a recessive gene for blonde hair.  But a blonde haired parent won't have any kids with blonde hair if his/her black haired spouse doesn't have a recessive gene for it. 

[Black Crow]

50 minutes ago, OtherFromAnotherMother said:

From Arya III, SoS:

I'm not sure if this qualifies as a "greendream" because Winterfell has already already been burned at this point.

But this couldn't be from Nymeria's eyes either, right? Could Nymeria have gone all the way to Winterfell since we see her attack some of the Bloody Mummers after Arya escapes from Harrenhal? 

Could it be foreshadowing of something else? 

I don't think its foreshadowing anything specific, but rather its like Jon's crypt dreams and, arguably, Jaime's dream of the cavern under Casterley. She's being drawn back to Winterfell, but at the same time there's something wrong and its getting ever more difficult to get there - hence the mud and the walls fading. As we don't have a Jojen POV to show us what a greendream actually looks like its rather hard to say if this qualifies, but I would say that in all three of these examples; Jon Snow, Jaime Lannister and Arya Stark, we're seeing a lot of inner torment and angst reflected rather than an actual vision of the future. Sight can after all be an ability to see our own souls.

[Black Crow]

36 minutes ago, Frey family reunion said:

Well technically they all have direwolves carved on their tombs, that doesn't mean they were wargs.  It seems the Starks liked to carve direwolves on things, like their throne/seat.  But my guess is if we go to Casterly Rock, we'd see a lot of lions carved on things perhaps even their tombs, doesn't necessarily mean anything.  Nor does there appear to be any legends about the Starks being wargs which I find unusual.  Because it seems like quite the topic of conversation about the current Stark kids being wargs.  If skinchanging has a genetic component, then we need to find out if the Starks either historically married brother to sister, or at least first cousin back into the main line.  If so, then perhaps they knew that they had a magical bloodline that had to be kept in the family.  Otherwise being a Stark after a while becomes significant in name only.  Unless there is some paternal trait that is always passed down father to son, and there is an unbroken paternal line in the history of the Stark family.  (and if the legend of Bael has some truth to it, then we know it didn't).

I agree and in this its worth remembering the Warg King, whoever he was. If the Starks were themselves wargs why specifically identify one of their opponents as the Warg King rather than by name.

[Matthew.]

Is it overly simplistic and cynical to just conclude that the reason there are so many Stark wargs in the current generation is because that's what worked for the story that the author wanted to tell, rather than because of some deeper in-world reason involving maternal bloodlines and whatnot? It seems a bit like watching a Star Wars movie, and trying to treat the number of notable members in the Skywalker family as some grand mystery that is meant to be solved, rather than as a storytelling conceit.