Heresy 194 Underworld

[LynnS]

33 minutes ago, Black Crow said:

Ah, but you're missing the point. Lets say for the sake of argument the Last Hero slew a lizard-lion, which I take to be some kind of crocodile or alligator. The story, as some would have it, then travels eastward where the Last Hero becomes Azor Ahai and the lizard-lion becomes a bloody great dragon. That's how stories evolve. He gets forgotten in Westeros because all he did was slay a lizard-lion but in Asshai he's remembered as a dragon-slayer with a magic sword. That's fine so long as its just a bed-time story but it don't work if you start expecting the Last Hero to "return" in Westeros with the magic sword and slaughtered dragon he never had in life on account of both growing in the telling as the story journeyed east.

[Brad Stark]

1 hour ago, Feather Crystal said:

I don't recall if the stone men were brought up as part of the underworld? Is this just a contagious medical condition (grayscale), or is the disease of magical origin? It seems to be the inversion to wighting.

The wights are dead with bones that remember and the corpse can be raised to walk when conditions are dark and cold and the winds are rising. We've theorized in Heresy before if the bodies were infected with a type of virus or if this is the ice magic at play. It doesn't seem to be a true life, because they cannot move during daylight hours.

The stone men, on the other hand are living humans trapped in a rapidly hardening outer body, but it also seems as if the human inside cannot die. How else to explain that they continue to shuffle around even though they cannot drink or eat? We're told ice preserves and fire consumes, but becoming a stone man seems like it's only the flesh that is consumed while life is preserved inside. 

I would guess there is magic involved.   The disease only seems to affect those of Valyrian descent.  It also seems important to the story,  and if it is, and it is viral or bacterial, that completely changes the genera. 

I wouldn't be surprised if the disease is fatal, and the reports of stone men stumbling around forever are exaggerations.

[Voice]

13 hours ago, Feather Crystal said:

Bump

 

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! 

You should come back and bump with us Melicrystal Featherandre. 

http://thelasthearth.com/thread/74/bumping-benjen

Ben needs all the help he can get. 

 

 

12 hours ago, Matthew. said:

Yes, some people will be correct, and others won't--but how much should we actually care about that prospect, as a factor in our discussions? If you have a sudden theory that you think is really cool, but isn't very likely to come true, should you just not bother to share it? If you put your idea out there, and give someone else that "Wow, why didn't I think of that!" feeling, is that valuable, or are our thoughts about ASOIAF only worthwhile if a 68 year old man in Santa Fe canonizes them?

I'm trying to keep a sense of perspective here. Of course it's neat to solve a mystery, to put together all the hints and arrive at the correct answer...on the other hand, the mystery at hand here is the parentage of a fictional character. Being on the right side of that debate is, perhaps, not terribly important.

I'd go as far as to say that there is a certain appeal in being wrong; to be wrong is to be surprised. How would it feel to wait 6+ years for WoW, read it, reach the end, and say "Welp...that went pretty much as I expected." Satisfying, or disappointing?

Edit: I should clarify that none of these are rhetorical questions, or raised to be condescending or insincere. I'm legitimately curious about what other posters value in their approach to discussing a fictional work. For example, if someone has spent a whole bunch of time discussing a particular idea, only to have that idea not come true, do they feel bad--like they've wasted their time?

 

Preach! And LOL @the 68 year old man canonizing our thoughts!!! That's exactly the kind of shite I'm talking about. Who gives a faawk? Our thoughts are our thoughts. GRRM's canon is $$$. LOL

So, to your whole blurb there, man.... My thoughts exactly. And I mean EXACTLY. 

The conversation is the reward. Language is a gift, and everyone's favorite incomplete fantasy series is but an excuse to use that gift. 

 

 

9 hours ago, Black Crow said:

This comes up from time to time as a popular theory but there'd a big problem in that while the two [?] sets of stories are superficially similar in featuring a hero with a sword - and what self-respecting hero doesn't have a sword - they are also different.

Now it can certainly be argued that the Last Hero story has travelled east to become Azor Ahai but the problem is that the far eastern version has important embellishments which the original certainly doesn't have. Adding those embellishments out east is likely; forgetting them back home isn't. 

In other words it might successfully be argued [though I decline to agree] that the Last Hero and Azor Ahai were one and the same, but if the Hero returns he won't be forging a flaming sword or sticking it into his Nissa Nissa, he will be the Last Hero not the Azor Ahai of those ancient books of Asshai.

 

No big problem at all, I quite agree.

As I said at the start, the Essosi myths are but embellishments. And as I've stated often, here and elsewhere, it makes sense that various cultures would integrate the myth according to their own traditions and history. 

After all, we see the same thing in real life, and GRRM is a student of history and theology. 

 

 

1 hour ago, Black Crow said:

Ah, but you're missing the point. Lets say for the sake of argument the Last Hero slew a lizard-lion, which I take to be some kind of crocodile or alligator. The story, as some would have it, then travels eastward where the Last Hero becomes Azor Ahai and the lizard-lion becomes a bloody great dragon. That's how stories evolve. He gets forgotten in Westeros because all he did was slay a lizard-lion but in Asshai he's remembered as a dragon-slayer with a magic sword. That's fine so long as its just a bed-time story but it don't work if you start expecting the Last Hero to "return" in Westeros with the magic sword and slaughtered dragon he never had in life on account of both growing in the telling as the story journeyed east.

 

Yup. A guy named 'Nick' wears a cloak to deliver some mail on a cold day, and a thousand years later he's riding around on a sled in the sky, pulled by reindeer. Same thing happened to Jesus. LOL And GRRM did it to Judas Iscariot, personally! If you've never read GRRM's The Way of Cross and Dragon, I think you'd really like it.

[Black Crow]

1 hour ago, Black Crow said:

Ah, but you're missing the point. Lets say for the sake of argument the Last Hero slew a lizard-lion, which I take to be some kind of crocodile or alligator. The story, as some would have it, then travels eastward where the Last Hero becomes Azor Ahai and the lizard-lion becomes a bloody great dragon. That's how stories evolve. He gets forgotten in Westeros because all he did was slay a lizard-lion but in Asshai he's remembered as a dragon-slayer with a magic sword. That's fine so long as its just a bed-time story but it don't work if you start expecting the Last Hero to "return" in Westeros with the magic sword and slaughtered dragon he never had in life on account of both growing in the telling as the story journeyed east.

Or, to give another example which I recall somebody else offering a couple of years back:

We have fat, cowardly Sam Tarly, who largely by accident manages to do for Ser Puddles and thereby is transformed into Sam the Slayer. Give him a little time and distance [say Asshai] and the Ser Puddles he slew in an epic contest will be a mighty warrior of renown in seven league boots, or even a whole army of Ice Warriors, while Sam's dragonglass dagger will be transformed into a magic sword.

Yet if Sam the Slayer were to return he wouldn't be the brave and valiant fairy-tale hero of legend with the magic sword, written of in Asshai, but scared fat Sam with his stone dagger and frost-bitten feet

[Matthew.]

10 hours ago, Cowboy Dan said:

If I'm wrong then no biggie. If I wind up being right about something then cool I did a thing for fun.

Thanks for your responses, and I feel like this is a close summation to how I feel. I guess the cause of my rambling is that I'm both fascinated and a little weirded out by the fan culture that has developed around ASOIAF, in no small part because the author has left people hanging for years, and even decades on some mysteries.

A consequence of this is that some people have become so emotionally invested in their interpretation - or so opposed to other people's interpretations - that the prospect of enjoying the Winds of Winter as a reading experience has become secondary to their anticipation of what WoW will mean for forums discussions; it is not an exaggeration to say that there are some posters scattered across the forums that have been waiting for years to say "I TOLD YOU SO!"

I'm not even saying that's wrong, or unhealthy--we all have to determine for ourselves what we 'value' in a discussion. I just think it's a bit of a bummer when this whole forums rivalry thing leads to posters, especially new posters, having their ideas dismissed.

[Voice]

1 hour ago, Black Crow said:

They haven't been mentioned so far as I'm aware but given the very unlikely physiology of the condition, which seems to make leprosy sound like a mild cold, I would say that there has to be some magic involved in there somewhere.

54 minutes ago, Feather Crystal said:

Maybe the two "diseases" are side effects of using one type of magic against the opposing magic? For example using fire magic to defeat ice magic, or ice magic to defeat fire magic.

 

Psst...

Not a 'disease'...

 

A Miasma.

[Matthew.]

1 hour ago, Black Crow said:

That's fine so long as its just a bed-time story but it don't work if you start expecting the Last Hero to "return" in Westeros with the magic sword and slaughtered dragon he never had in life on account of both growing in the telling as the story journeyed east.

I'm going to keep beating a dead horse on this subject, but I think it's important to remember the context that there is more than one way to acquire knowledge on Planetos.

For example, Dany has visions that represent the War of the Five Kings, as well as the Red Wedding, while she's under the influence of the Shade of the Evening. Given that the Long Night is, without exaggeration, the most important event in human history - the WB tells us it even affected the peoples of the East - wouldn't it be showing up in people's glass candles? In their flame visions? In their shade of the evening hallucinations?

What I would propose is that, if you're a mystic in Asshai, maybe you "see" the Last Hero struggling against darkness or w/e, but the vision is not literal, and this is where discrepancies start to sneak in.

All of that said, I wouldn't take it as a given that there wasn't a terrible price paid to forge Dawn, or the LH's dragonsteel, depending on whether or not they're different weapons. Just because they didn't make their way into the LH's oral history, that doesn't mean they didn't happen.

[Black Crow]

Yes but once again these "embellishments" don't occur in the original Last Hero stories. Surely you're not suggesting that candle-watchers in Asshai know more about events in Westeros than those on the spot.

[LynnS]

16 minutes ago, Black Crow said:

Or, to give another example which I recall somebody else offering a couple of years back:

We have fat, cowardly Sam Tarly, who largely by accident manages to do for Ser Puddles and thereby is transformed into Sam the Slayer. Give him a little time and distance [say Asshai] and the Ser Puddles he slew in an epic contest will be a mighty warrior of renown in seven league boots, or even a whole army of Ice Warriors, while Sam's dragonglass dagger will be transformed into a magic sword.

Yet if Sam the Slayer were to return he wouldn't be the brave and valiant fairy-tale hero of legend with the magic sword, written of in Asshai, but scared fat Sam with his stone dagger and frost-bitten feet

Poor old Sam. Let's hope he gets a warm pair of slippers for Christmas.  In the end the ice faeries will turn out to be just puddles of water that don't require a magic sword to extinguish at all.

[JNR]

12 hours ago, Matthew. said:

Yes, some people will be correct, and others won't--but how much should we actually care about that prospect, as a factor in our discussions?

In our lives?  Not very much.  We're living in a time when the most powerful human being on the planet has zero experience in or knowledge about foreign policy, domestic policy, or the military.   That does tend to put things in perspective.

In our experience as fans of ASOIAF?  That's quite a different matter.

I don't know how much time you've spent over in General, or other fan sites, far outside of Heresy.   If you had, you would know that virtually anyone who dares to suggest R+L≠J is swiftly deemed a Flat Earther, a Scientologist, or (quite recently on this very site) a Holocaust denier.

The condescension is beyond belief... which to those of us who've always known better, is pretty funny.

So as a result, I expect to enjoy quite a bit the inevitable wailing and gnashing of teeth that will emerge when it's conclusively shown that Jon's parents are not in fact Rhaegar and Lyanna.  (Though I wonder how much such enjoyment will be tolerated on this site.)

12 hours ago, Matthew. said:

How would it feel to wait 6+ years for WoW, read it, reach the end, and say "Welp...that went pretty much as I expected." Satisfying, or disappointing?

Quite satisfying to me, but I won't speak for anybody else. 

This is because among various other predictions, I've said for years that Show World ≠ Book World, and that we absolutely cannot expect the show to foretell the books, even on major topics.

In other words... part of what I expect from ADOS is that I will be surprised, because it's so different from the show.  And that's why I think I'll be satisfied, along with whatever theory confirmation I get.

[Matthew.]

26 minutes ago, Black Crow said:

Yes but once again these "embellishments" don't occur in the original Last Hero stories. Surely you're not suggesting that candle-watchers in Asshai know more about events in Westeros than those on the spot.

Actually, I'm sure most embellishments and aspects of local flair applied to the tales are probably nonsense. The one aspect that I think may be missing from the LH's tale, but highlighted in the tale of Azor Ahai, is that magic has a price on Planetos. If the LH had a magical blade, how did he acquire it?

If the Last Hero is the only one "on the spot" in Westeros who knows what price he paid, is that a tale he'd be keen to pass on? To use the Red Wedding example, it's already becoming clear that some of the people "on the spot," are attempting to rewrite history--in that regard, someone that had seen the Red Wedding unfold in their glass candle might give you a more unbiased interpretation.

In addition to all of that, we must also emphasize the distorted nature of visions. Dany sees the Wo5K as five rat men savaging a woman--Dany's very unlikely to correctly interpret the meaning of what she's seeing, because what she's seeing isn't literal. Thus, the Last Hero may not have literally plunged a blade into the heart of a beloved wife. Instead, "Nissa Nissa" may have been some representative idea, a metaphor for something else.

[Matthew.]

5 hours ago, JNR said:

I don't know how much time you've spent over in General, or other fan sites, far outside of Heresy.   If you had, you would know that virtually anyone who dares to suggest R+L≠J is swiftly deemed a Flat Earther, a Scientologist, or (quite recently on this very site) a Holocaust denier.

The condescension is beyond belief... which to those of us who've always known better, is pretty funny.

Yes, I've seen the poor behavior some people exhibit on this site, including moderators. I've seen people have their threads deleted, or be treated as trolls, just because they have a different theory for Jon's parentage.

Which is why it's all the more important to use these experiences as a model of how not to treat others.

This is why I'm holding Heresy to a higher standard--some people here have, in my opinion, been pretty condescending toward the ideas of others, when they should know better from personal experience. The more unique someone's interpretation, the more it seems to inspire hostility, an anger that arises when confronted with the fact that some people have read the same story as us, yet come to fundamentally different conclusions. "How could you believe that!?!"

Edit: Put another way, it seems that the lesson that some people have taken away from RLJ is not that it was a mistake to be condescending, but that it was a mistake to be condescending in service of the wrong theory.

[Melifeather]

1 hour ago, Voice said:

 

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! 

You should come back and bump with us Melicrystal Featherandre. 

http://thelasthearth.com/thread/74/bumping-benjen

Ben needs all the help he can get. 

 

Aw! It means a lot to me that you would offer! And just because I like bumpin' Benjen! 

1 hour ago, Voice said:

 

Psst...

Not a 'disease'...

 

A Miasma.

I agree the Sorrows is afflicted with a putrid mist, but what caused this miasma? I'll have to check out your link later, but what I was wondering is if using opposing magic against the other is the source?

[Black Crow]

Something worth considering, and I'm sure we've discussed this before, is the nature of magic or rather whether thinking of it in terms of Ice and Fire is too prescriptive or perhaps not prescriptive enough. Jojen and Meera talk, and quite rightly, or Ice and Fire and how the land is one, but are they talking only of Westeros in declaring Ice and Fire to be the same but different?

Westeros is afflicted by long summers and long winters, but what of the rest? GRRM has spoken of how Essos is not so badly affected because its landmass is not so northerly as Westeros, but does the conflict continue in another guise?

Mel we know sees the conflict not in terms of Ice and Fire but in Darkness and Light - yes the darkness is cold but its not quite the same, and as for the Summer Islands and Asshai, does Ice ever feature?

The point I'm making is that if we accept that there is a perpetual conflict waged since before history began, Ice and Fire is only one face or aspect of it, peculiar to Westeros. Elsewhere it takes other faces and therefore the Stone men may be the wights of the Rhoyne.

[Voice]

25 minutes ago, Feather Crystal said:

Aw! It means a lot to me that you would offer! And just because I like bumpin' Benjen! 

Not *just* because of your fondness for bumping... but I admit, being a Benjen bumper doesn't hurt.

 

Quote

I agree the Sorrows is afflicted with a putrid mist, but what caused this miasma? I'll have to check out your link later, but what I was wondering is if using opposing magic against the other is the source?

There be more than one meaning of "miasma," m'lady. In the link, I explain how GRRM is employing each. 

[Voice]

1 minute ago, Cowboy Dan said:

Oh god, do you just plug it every time you can get a foot in the door? 

Really cool idea by the way! I got pretty far into it but still need to finish reading the rest of it. So many good theories and posters, so little time.

 

Oh gods yes. I plug it like it like it's going to melt! I spent years working on that theory before I posted it. LOL

And I am very confident that it explains the central mystery of the series (which, as it happens, is not Jon Snow's birth... Jon's life is a part of that mystery, but not in the way most people 'round the W suspect). 

And, well, to @Matthew.'s point, I want it out there as much as possible before it is proven right/wrong by the Winds of Winter. The discussion is the reward.  

[Voice]

2 minutes ago, Cowboy Dan said:

Mmm yes, quite. I'm not trying to push any sort of dogmatic position or anything, just ideas I've been working on and seeing how they're received (or not). When it comes to my comment on Jon's parentage I just saw that there was a relative consensus on Jon (and I was in the consensus) so naturally the Devil's Advocate in me just said, "There's a consensus? In Heresy? Guess I know what to do now!"

LOL I hear ya. What was the consensus? What was your comment? 

Sorry, I think I missed all that in my efforts to link to my Weirwood Ghost theory. LOLOLOLOL

[Matthew.]

12 minutes ago, Cowboy Dan said:

It wasn't all bad but I think a big part of the lack of response is the "secret Targaryen fatigue" as I like to refer to it.

This is one of the reasons I'm occasionally reluctant to bring up ideas I have. It's not so much that I think they'll be mocked, or met with skepticism, it's that I think the fandom is tired of secret Targs, as well as "this character is actually alive, and masquerading as this character" style theories.

Though, to be fair, it is the author that is adding fuel to all those fires. If I'm not mistaken, it's just within the last year that GRRM confirmed that Dany's memories of the House with the Red Door, and its lemon trees, might have a little more to them than meets the eye--and the WB added new evidence to support the idea of Aerys making unwanted advances on Joanna Lannister.

 

9 minutes ago, Voice said:

And, well, to @Matthew.'s point, I want it out there as much as possible before it is proven right/wrong by the Winds of Winter.

If it isn't explicitly confirmed by the Winds of Winter, you can just re-present your miasma idea as poststructuralist criticism

[Voice]

10 minutes ago, Cowboy Dan said:

It's the second one at the top of page 14. I can understand if ya glossed over it, I can be a bit of a windbag and mess with the flow of the thread. It's a talent I seem to have 

But basically instead of RLJ possibly ALJ. I've got a little more to it (emphasis on little obviously) but that's the basic idea. And just because in his dream he's burning Ned which would run counter to the (what seemed like a consensus) position that Jon once discovering his parentage would stick to his Stark heritage instead of embracing the Targ side. I said it's a bit crackpot but I figure what better place to posit it than here!

 

Um, doesn't sound crackpot at all in our neighborhood. LOL I know a place you could post it where it would certainly generate some discussion. It would have much company in looking at the possibility of ALJ:

Jon at Starfall from Mojo (@motherofdragons here at the W)

Parental Combo Platter: Accidental Run-in + RAD + ALJ = Story Makes More Sense from SlyWren 

From Death to Dawn Revisited: Jon Will Rise as The Sword of the Morning from SlyWren 

And of course, superunknown5's essay from the X+Y=J Project:
Arthur Dayne + Lyanna Stark = Jon Snow

How Ice Became Dawn from yours truly

 

Our version of a crackpot is this one:

Arthur Dayne Is Jon's Father in which Arthur Dayne = Daario. LOL

 

[Voice]

25 minutes ago, Matthew. said:

If it isn't explicitly confirmed by the Winds of Winter, you can just re-present your miasma idea as poststructuralist criticism

 

LOL! Nice. Putting that on the to-do list.