Thin theory...

[Illyrio Mo'Parties]

...in both senses of the word, i.e. there's not much to it, and it's about Thin Places.

I've seen speculation elsewhere that there are certain places on Planetos where the boundaries between worlds are thinner than elsewhere. This is usually a result of some horrifying tragedy, and manifests itself in ghostliness, spookiness and/or more powerful magic. Suggested thin places include:

• Harrenhal
• The Nightfort
• Chroyanne
• Asshai
• High Heart
• Hardhome

And probably a whole bunch of others that I'm forgetting. But Harrenhal and the Nightfort seem to crop up most.

Now let's jump to the Red Wedding.

Quote

Lord Walder had ordered the slaughter of the Starks at Roslin's wedding, but it had been Lame Lothar who had plotted it out with Roose Bolton, all the way down to which songs would be played.

-- Epilogue, ASOS

 

Quote

 

"So Lord Walder slew him under his own roof, at his own table?" Tyrion made a fist. "What of Lady Catelyn?"

"Slain as well, I'd say. 'A pair of wolfskins.' Frey had intended to keep her captive, but perhaps something went awry."

 

 

-- Tyrion VI, ASOS

 

From these two quotes we can surmise that Tywin wasn't involved in the details of the Red Wedding, nor that he lost his keen sense of politics: Catelyn Stark was of course more valuable as a hostage than as a corpse. And that logic applies to every northern lord there, except for Robb. Robb was the only one who needed to be killed, and while Tywin probably expected that a few more men would have to die along with him, I doubt he instructed them to kill everyone, down to the lowliest soldier.

Think about it: once Robb's dead and the lords are taken hostage, is it necessary to kill the knights, men-at-arms and peasant levies as well?

 

So it wasn't Tywin's idea to make it quite such a bloodbath. (Not that he cared.) It must therefore have been Walder Frey and his plotters, Lame Lothar and Roose Bolton. And the way Merrett describes it, it sounds as though Walder didn't do much more than give the orders.

Now, remember that mysterious book that Roose Bolton reads at Harrenhal - the one he burns? And Harrenhal is one of our thin places...

Well, what if Roose Bolton, in planning out the Red Wedding, deliberately made the event a much greater atrocity than was politically necessary, because he was hoping to make a Thin Place out of the Twins?

...I don't know, it seemed an interesting idea when I started typing.

[Snowmelter]

I love this idea, especially since GRRM has inserted the Lovecraft Mythos (at least its atmosphere) in many places.  I have always wondered about the book Roose burned because books are fairly rare and expensive in Westeros.  What, then, would be the purpose of spiritually/supernaturally poisoning the Twins?  To close the crossing of the Trident to make the North even harder to get to by a land based army?  To sow the seeds of the Frey's downfall?  Black humor?  What think you?

[sweetsunray]

2 hours ago, Illyrio Mo'Parties said:

Well, what if Roose Bolton, in planning out the Red Wedding, deliberately made the event a much greater atrocity than was politically necessary, because he was hoping to make a Thin Place out of the Twins?

While I like your proposal of "thin places", I'd say there was a military advantage for having that many men killed. He intends to rule the North. If those same lords or their brothers or wives or sons or daughters still have their men-at-arms at their disposal then he's outnumbered. Robb brings 3000 men to the Twins. Roose as well. So, he's even matched (not counting the Freys). Roose is not the man either who'd want to forever rely on Frey army support. And it's a strategy he used since he commanded forces south of the Neck: Battle of the Green Fork, sending Glover et all to Duskendale. Any of the troops that could be loyal to a Stark or be used against him he ditches, he sends in first in the van or a suicide mission, he leaves behind at fords to face the Mountain.

So, no, I don't think Roose tried to create a sink hole/thin place.

[Dorian Martell's son]

3 hours ago, Illyrio Mo'Parties said:

...I don't know, it seemed an interesting idea when I started typing.

Tywin ordered the whole thing, and while I am sure Roose ordered the extra brutality, He did it to ensure his rule. By killing all the Robb loyalists, he eliminated most of the resistance to him in the north. 

[Jon's Queen Consort]

This kind of reminds me of temporal rifts at Cardiff and in Coal Hill Academy in Doctor Who.

[Greywater-Watch]

8 hours ago, Illyrio Mo'Parties said:

I've seen speculation elsewhere that there are certain places on Planetos where the boundaries between worlds are thinner than elsewhere. This is usually a result of some horrifying tragedy, and manifests itself in ghostliness, spookiness and/or more powerful magic. Suggested thin places include:

• Harrenhal
• The Nightfort
• Chroyanne
• Asshai
• High Heart
• Hardhome

Please help me understand:

What exactly do you mean with thin places? And how would these correlate with a crime like the Red Wedding?

It was plotted with ink and letter between Tywin Lannister (at Kings Landing, or do you think it started before?), with Roose Bolton (most probably during his stay at Harrenhal), the Twins (Walder Frey) and most probably with the Westerlings (at the Crag).

[Shouldve Taken The Black]

9 hours ago, Illyrio Mo'Parties said:

..in both senses of the word, i.e. there's not much to it, and it's about Thin Places.

I've seen speculation elsewhere that there are certain places on Planetos where the boundaries between worlds are thinner than elsewhere. This is usually a result of some horrifying tragedy, and manifests itself in ghostliness, spookiness and/or more powerful magic. Suggested thin places include:

• Harrenhal
• The Nightfort
• Chroyanne
• Asshai
• High Heart
• Hardhome

And probably a whole bunch of others that I'm forgetting. But Harrenhal and the Nightfort seem to crop up most.

Now let's jump to the Red Wedding.

Quote

Lord Walder had ordered the slaughter of the Starks at Roslin's wedding, but it had been Lame Lothar who had plotted it out with Roose Bolton, all the way down to which songs would be played.

-- Epilogue, ASOS

 

Quote

 

"So Lord Walder slew him under his own roof, at his own table?" Tyrion made a fist. "What of Lady Catelyn?"

"Slain as well, I'd say. 'A pair of wolfskins.' Frey had intended to keep her captive, but perhaps something went awry."

 

 

-- Tyrion VI, ASOS

 

From these two quotes we can surmise that Tywin wasn't involved in the details of the Red Wedding, nor that he lost his keen sense of politics: Catelyn Stark was of course more valuable as a hostage than as a corpse. And that logic applies to every northern lord there, except for Robb. Robb was the only one who needed to be killed, and while Tywin probably expected that a few more men would have to die along with him, I doubt he instructed them to kill everyone, down to the lowliest soldier.

Think about it: once Robb's dead and the lords are taken hostage, is it necessary to kill the knights, men-at-arms and peasant levies as well?

 

So it wasn't Tywin's idea to make it quite such a bloodbath. (Not that he cared.) It must therefore have been Walder Frey and his plotters, Lame Lothar and Roose Bolton. And the way Merrett describes it, it sounds as though Walder didn't do much more than give the orders.

Now, remember that mysterious book that Roose Bolton reads at Harrenhal - the one he burns? And Harrenhal is one of our thin places...

Well, what if Roose Bolton, in planning out the Red Wedding, deliberately made the event a much greater atrocity than was politically necessary, because he was hoping to make a Thin Place out of the Twins?

...I don't know, it seemed an interesting idea when I started typing.

Interesting idea about thin places. This theory about the RW, taken as a whole, would mean that Roose was much more deeply apprised of the magic of the world than he appears at the moment.

I think the arguments raised by others about there being other important reasons for Roose to want a bloodbath are valid, though that doesn’t completely rule out Roose having other darker motives beyond the obvious.

More interesting, to me, is that, irrespective of Roose’s intentions, the Twins potentially becoming another Harrehal or Nightfort. It does seem that, in keeping with Medieval history, sites of atrocities and crimes are considered cursed.

[Illyrio Mo'Parties]

9 hours ago, Snowmelter said:

What, then, would be the purpose of spiritually/supernaturally poisoning the Twins? ...  Black humor?  What think you?

Pretty much. My best guess is that Roose would do something like this just to see if he could.

[Shouldve Taken The Black]

9 hours ago, Illyrio Mo'Parties said:

And probably a whole bunch of others that I'm forgetting.

Summerhall maybe?

[Illyrio Mo'Parties]

1 hour ago, Greywater-Watch said:

Please help me understand:

What exactly do you mean with thin places? And how would these correlate with a crime like the Red Wedding?

It was plotted with ink and letter between Tywin Lannister (at Kings Landing, or do you think it started before?), with Roose Bolton (most probably during his stay at Harrenhal), the Twins (Walder Frey) and most probably with the Westerlings (at the Crag).

Well, the idea of a "thin place" is a place where the walls between worlds - e.g. the land of the living and the land of the dead - are "thinnest", so to speak, and things can more easily cross over.

I guess it comes from Celtic mythology. The pagan origins of Halloween involve this idea, although they don't use the term "thin place" (or "thin time", as it would be). The idea is basically the same: Oct. 31st is the date when the overworld and the underworld are closest together, and therefore things can more easily cross the boundary between the two. So on Halloween you get ghosts and demons and ghouls and such roaming around town.

I guess in parts of Britain there are places where the elves and the faeries are thought more likely to appear. These can be considered "thin".

As for how the Red Wedding connects, the idea is that should a place suffer some terrible tragedy or taboo-breaking horror, or perhaps a series of such over time, the psychic weight of all that suffering and "wrongness" eventually wears away at the fabric of the world, leaving that place "thin".

Thus Harrenhal and the Nightfort, with their long history of suffering and the intimations that things took place there which offended the very gods, have become thin, and are more likely to witness spooky, ghostly things; people staying there are apt to be cursed; etc, etc. Murder and betrayal and breaking guest right in thousands of cases all in one night seems like it might be enough to make a place thin, if such a thing is possible.

I don't know whether the notion that a place can become thin in that way is part of Celtic myth. I read it, and the term "thin places", somewhere in these very forums I suppose.

But, as others have pointed out, Roose had ample non-magical reasons to want to make the Red Wedding as bloody as possible.

[Jon Fossoway]

Your idea about thin places is by itself a good topic for discussion, but the Red Wedding I think was more for military reasons. Those three thousand murdered men were potential soldiers. Either way, there was no guarantee that they would follow those who betrayed the Stark, and I imagine that even if they were held as prisoners, it is a huge expense for a castle or a Lesser Lord. While the Frey might have unnecessarily racked up the Northern soldiers at Red Wedding events, the cold, calculated, major plan was to minimize the army loyal to Robb Stark who marched south. And that plan was achieved with a resounding success.

[Lady Blizzardborn]

10 hours ago, Dorian Martell's son said:

Tywin ordered the whole thing, and while I am sure Roose ordered the extra brutality, He did it to ensure his rule. By killing all the Robb loyalists, he eliminated most of the resistance to him in the north. 

Tywin allowed it, he didn't order it. Tyrion said as much. 

@Illyrio Mo'Parties this might tie in with the "hinges of the world" that Mel speaks of. She says the Wall is one, IIRC. Her power/magic is certainly stronger there. I don't see a particular plot advantage to making The Twins, already of massive strategic value due to its location and placement, another thin place or hinge of the world--but it could be one of those little extras GRRM likes to throw in.

[sweetsunray]

The Twins is certainly likened much like a Rostau gate (mythical underworld gates in Egyptian mythology the night sun and the souls of dead men have to traverse to acquire Osiris status or be resurrected) before the Red Wedding. George uses particular description and imagery to match it with the coffin texts known as the Book of Two Ways and Book of Gates. For example the spikes on the walls, the water tower, the boiling Green Fork, and how Robb's crossing army looks like a snake, the horned moon, and upon return Walder Frey presenting 12 maidens to Robb (like the maidens for each night hour).

So, in a way the Twins is already set up as an underworld gateway before the Red Wedding, with the potential to become extremely violent if one fails to trick or control the gatekeeper.

[Illyrio Mo'Parties]

7 hours ago, King Merrett I Frey said:

Your idea about thin places is by itself a good topic for discussion...

I should make clear that it was someone else's idea. Don't remember who, but.

6 hours ago, sweetsunray said:

The Twins is certainly likened much like a Rostau gate (mythical underworld gates in Egyptian mythology the night sun and the souls of dead men have to traverse to acquire Osiris status or be resurrected) before the Red Wedding. George uses particular description and imagery to match it with the coffin texts known as the Book of Two Ways and Book of Gates. For example the spikes on the walls, the water tower, the boiling Green Fork, and how Robb's crossing army looks like a snake, the horned moon, and upon return Walder Frey presenting 12 maidens to Robb (like the maidens for each night hour).

So, in a way the Twins is already set up as an underworld gateway before the Red Wedding, with the potential to become extremely violent if one fails to trick or control the gatekeeper.

Interesting... I don't know much about the mythological stuff, but it is interesting to think of the Twins in those terms. It's a crossing all these men make that they'll never return from; on the other side of the crossing lies the virtual hell of war; and I suppose there's also a resonance with that fella that would row you across the Styx. [Googled: his name is Charon.] You needed to pay him a toll as well, if I recall; that's why people used to put coins on a dead person's eyes.

Might that in some way make Walder Frey, the Lord of the Crossing, analogous to Charon, the ferryman of Greek mythology? You pay him a toll to get through to the underworld... but is that the north or the south? It might be that we look at the Twins all wrong because we've only seen it taking summer traffic south - but in winter, where life itself seems barely capable of existing north of the Neck, it might be profitable to consider the Twins and/or Moat Cailin as a gateway to the land of the dead.

After all, the association between the land of the dead and the Land of Always Winter has already been made, I think, and we might consider the North merely the Land of Sometimes Winter, which means that it's sometimes the Land of the Dead. And if cold = death, then remember that it snows even in the summer up there.

So, what - the Lord of the Crossing functions, for part of the seasonal cycle, as the ferryman, with the North as the underworld?

(And now I'm looking up Greek myths on Wikipedia, and note that Hades, lord of the underworld, is cold and stern but just and often depicted accompanied by a three-headed dog... which sounds a little bit Starkish, but is probably just coincidence. Still, it does make me wonder whether there's some connection between the Others and the Starks, especially since the Greeks apparently preferred euphemisms rather than actually saying Hades's name. But that's enough tinfoil for now.)

[sweetsunray]

The Riverlands + Neck gateways I identified you can read up on in the essay Them Bones on my blog. The thread about it on the forum left the Egyptian mythology and Lands of Rostau section out of it. But I go into depth about it on the blog essay.

And no, it's not a coincidence that Hades reminds your of the Starks: I make a case for it that Ned Stark heavily matches Hades in this essay

That is Ned Stark is like a Hades to me in life, but becomes more of an Osiris in death, with his missing "sword" (if you consider the sword as "phallic") and his missing bones.

I also make a case that the North + beyond the Wall are the Underworld. Or rather they are at the onset of the series. The Riverlands have become annexed to the underworld as well.

Yes, Charon is the ferryman who helps with the crossing. The catspaw who came to assassinate Bran is described to look like Charon and he mutters how he's only there to help Bran get across. He was paid too remember? However, Walder Frey also has many allusions to the Egyptian Tem or Re-Atum. Atum was a creation god. He created the world and his children through masturbation. From his tears humans are created. But as he grows very old, he grows weary and wishes to destroy the world. Tem is the personification of this old Atum, often depicted leaning on a cane and bent back, and he slays the enemies of the sun-god Ra, when the sun has to travel through Rostau and pass the gates each night. Walder Frey's very elderly. He's a very fertile man, boasting how he fathered a whole army of sons and grandsons, but also weary of his sons and seemingly enjoying the knowledge that when he's gone, they'll end up fighting each other to be Lord of the Crossing.

The mythological explanation of the obols on the eyes is indeed in order to pay the toll of the crossing. The physical reason for it though is that rigor mortis in the facial muscles might have the distorting effect of opening the eyelids of a body. By putting weights on the eyelids, such as coins, people prevented the eyes from reopening. And to be very exact - in Greek myth Charon doesn't help the dead across the Styx, but the Achethon. There are several rivers in the underworld. The Styx is a poisonous river with a swamp part, and the river the gods swore on, but it runs through the heart of Hades. The Achethon is the one that borders to the land of the living, and is the one to cross. In later times, when Greek culture was being rediscovered after the dark ages, the Styx became popularly and erronously identified with the crossing river.

 

[The Fattest Leech]

13 hours ago, Shouldve Taken The Black said:

Summerhall maybe?

It's funny you mention Summerhall, which sorta parallels Winterfell. I came across something interesting the other day that is not even ASOIAF related... or so it seemed. I have not had time to analyze the entire thing, and I have not had time yet to search if anyone else has, but so far there are some well known connections of Summerhall to Pandemonium, and the related, Paradise Lost.

Some things, aside from the literal pandemonium the tragedy caused, include:

• Sun and Moon deities
• Zoroastrianism
• A picture of Paradise Lost (note the horned god, fire, and lightening) compared to a pic of Summerhall
• Both sources are called "hell", and in the story we know the Maggie line about, "I gorged on grief at Summerhall."
• Both are also called/referred to as "little deamon", or the "little demon"
• Pandemonium is described as, "The demons built it in about an hour, but it far surpassed all human palaces or dwellings; it may have been small, however, as the demons are described as shrinking from their titanic size in order to fit in."
  • Summerhall is described as lavish and such, and the dragons in the story had dwindled in size and eventually went "extinct".
• And these others which are easily paired with the ASOIAF story we already have. I just have not had enough time to break all of these down since I found this a day or two ago:

  • Creation myths

  • Birth of the Horse Twins from the grain/horse mother (Cox, p. 234, found in 7/11 language groups, which is a very conservative statistic)
  • Danu killed and cut open to produce a river (a parturition creation myth, 3/11)

  • Cyclic myths

  • Spring kills Winter, usually with his sprinkler or his striker (Cox, p. 559, found in 4/11 language groups)
  • Cloud/cows stolen from the sun god by the wind god and then released (Cox, p. 232, 4/11)
  • Death and rebirth of the (often grain-associated) life-death-rebirth deity causes the seasons; Frazer calls him the "Dying Corn God" (Frazer, Vol. 8 and 9 of the Golden Bough esp. Vol. 9, pp. 412–423; 4/11)
  • Uncle Water melts the ice and releases the water causing flooding (Gamkrelidze and Ivanov 1995, 5/11)
  • Quest of the golden apples of immortality, usually by a wind god (Cox, p. 512, 4/11)<<< This is Sansa, and a Sansa is an apple!!!

So yeah, I guess Summerhall is kind of a "thin" place and that could be why Rhaegar went there to brood and think about his lost family?

[OberynBlackfyre]

I think this is definitely interesting, but I don't think it can be applied to Roose Bolton PLANNING it to become a "Thin Place"- I enjoy that term btw.  

 

I think there are places that subsequently are more "magical" or possibly more inclined to the magic world, but there are certain things that need to be met. 

 

-Sorcery is almost always involved.  The two most potent magical entities we've seen in the book has been weirwood, and BLOOD-especially Blood of the dragon.  

-Harrenhall I think is by far the most dread place in the 7 Kingdoms, maybe with the Nightfort being able to contest it.  

-Harrenhall had weirwoods within it's walls, as they were used to help build it.  Also when the Black line perished, you had the presence of fire (DRAGON flame to be exact), Kingsblood (Harren and his sons all perished, that's A LOT of Kingsblood), and the weirwood that was used in the construction.

[For Highgarden]

I love the thought of the godswoods being thin places. Do you think there is a possibility that weirwood trees are indicative of possible thin places? Could they alternatively connect the thin places to one another? Did the red woman burning trees create some bad MOJO? 

[velo-knight]

On 12/30/2016 at 10:31 PM, OberynBlackfyre said:

I think this is definitely interesting, but I don't think it can be applied to Roose Bolton PLANNING it to become a "Thin Place"- I enjoy that term btw. 

I agree, for the military and political reasons others in the thread have pointed out, that Roose probably wasn't planning on anything magical. However, I'm glad more people are open to the idea that the Twins might  become a thin place. Consider: in addition to the Red Wedding, the Twins may well be host to a bloodbath of kinslaying, conspiracy, and murder after Lord Walder dies. Add whatever atrocities the BWB or an avenging Stark / Tully might commit (Starks are especially important here given their magical heritage) at the Twins and you've got a recipe for a Thin Place for sure.

Even the location of the Twins helps, here: the only bridge crossing over a fast and deep river. There's a lot of symbolism in bridges and rivers being magic places, with associations including the transition from this world to the underworld. Whether the Twins survive as an inhabited settlement or not, I strongly suspect that the Twins will be forever changed into a Thin Place.

[Fencer]

I find this to be a very interesting topic, particularly just the concept of "thin" places.  I am a little surprised though, that the first potential location that came to my mind hasn't been discusses yet: Valyria.

Certainly there was massive loss of life during the Doom, preceded by the suffering and death of those that had been enslaved, as well as an apparent abundance of magic and potentially practice of blood magic.  Now, we're told that this is a place where demons walk.  To my mind, this seems like it could be a prime candidate for a place where the fabric between worlds has worn quite thin.