Heresy 195 and the Mists of Time

[shizett]

3 minutes ago, Feather Crystal said:

Sam is trying to find information about the white walkers and wights and is hoping to find something in the library at the Wall. The annuls are just one resource that he's looked at and along the way he found the list of Lord Commanders. I'd like to point out that he didn't go looking specifically for the list of Lord Commanders. He found it while searching for records of the white walkers and wights, because Jon told him to look for any record of how to kill them. That's what was important.

We know he hasn't run out of more relevant resources as he asks for more time from Jon in the same convo. So, if it were you, would you look into the least relevant resource you have first?

Even more importantly, the annals are what he brings up, as they probably have the most important info. I really cannot see what would make it into NW annals other than a sighting? Why would someone index a book or an interesting piece of info in a yearly short report of events?!

I am not dismissing your answer, just thinking out loud. It might just be as you explained, but it is still a strange decision on the character and the writer's part.

[Melifeather]

12 minutes ago, shizett said:

We know he hasn't run out of more relevant resources as he asks for more time from Jon in the same convo. So, if it were you, would you look into the least relevant resource you have first?

Even more importantly, the annals are what he brings up, as they probably have the most important info. I really cannot see what would make it into NW annals other than a sighting? Why would someone index a book or an interesting piece of info in a yearly short report of events?!

I am not dismissing your answer, just thinking out loud. It might just be as you explained, but it is still a strange decision on the character and the writer's part.

I was under the impression Sam was searching through ancient records, thus his report that many were crumbling. I don't know how the library was sorted, but he may have just started with the most ancient records he could find regardless of what it was.

[Black Crow]

1 hour ago, shizett said:

Sorry, I forgot to answer this. As long as the WWs are around, the danger is around as well. I agree with @Matthew. that they would never become a mundane sighting. Why would they? It might be the case that whatever finished the LN did not eradicate the WWs but diminished their ability in raising the dead, but that is NOT a piece of info we've been given, nor Sam states that to be the case.

But they are not a danger if they are just white shadows occasionally seen [and avoided] in the woods. Annals, as I said, are chronological lists of events as distinct from histories. To be recorded in the annals an event has to have occurred, but that event doesn't have to be a battle or massacre, it could just as easily be a sighting of white walkers on the shore near Eastwatch, it doesn't have to be the battle of Waterloo.

[Matthew.]

1 hour ago, shizett said:

Sorry, I forgot to answer this. As long as the WWs are around, the danger is around as well. I agree with @Matthew. that they would never become a mundane sighting. Why would they? It might be the case that whatever finished the LN did not eradicate the WWs but diminished their ability in raising the dead, but that is NOT a piece of info we've been given, nor Sam states that to be the case.

Precisely, and the latter point you raise is one of the issues I have with this interpretation: not only has the text not created a context in which encountering a WW has become a mundane part of the NW's job, but there is also not a single line of text to suggest that there's any belief within the Watch that the WWs had lost the ability to raise wights, nor that it's only the reappearance of wights that makes the WWs dangerous.

Rather than being an interpretation that one arrives at naturally by reading the text, it is instead a theory crafted for the specific purpose of supporting a different theory.

To get back to Sam's comments, I think it's important to contrast it with this blurb from the World Book:
 

Quote

The archives of the Citadel contain a letter from Maester Aemon, sent in the early years of the reign of Aegon V, which reports on an account from a ranger named Redwyn, written in the days of King Dorren Stark. It recounts a journey to Lorn Point and the Frozen Shore, in which it is claimed that the ranger and his companions fought giants and traded with the children of the forest. Aemon's letter claimed that he had found many such accounts in his examinations of the archives of the Watch at Castle Black, and considered them credible.

"Many" accounts exist of intermittent encounters with giants and CotF, yet if Sam is to be believed, information on the Others is quite scarce. To repeat my earlier point, this is not an accident, but the entire point--the Others are not a race with which one might trade, they're a magic being that is crafted to kill men. The reason nobody has been encountering the Others is because, for a long time, nobody was making new Others.

[Brad Stark]

Most of us assume the white walkers have been around since The Long Night.   While this is possible,  consider the alternative.   White Walkers were created as a weapon in the Long Night,  and have sporadically been created by magic users since.  They haven't been seen, and not because they were hiding,  but no one was creating them and they didn't exist. 

[Brad Stark]

5 hours ago, Feather Crystal said:

I was under the impression Sam was searching through ancient records, thus his report that many were crumbling. I don't know how the library was sorted, but he may have just started with the most ancient records he could find regardless of what it was.

I've seen crumbling paper and books only a few years old if they weren't well kept.   Something unused and properly stored last longer,  but 100 years is very old for paper.  You can count every 500 year paper book in our world on your fingers.  Sam is contrasting old books he found with really old books he hasn't but expected to,  so I doubt he has anything 300 years old,  I don't see how he'd have anything ancient. 

[LordBlakeney]

50 minutes ago, Brad Stark said:

They haven't been seen, and not because they were hiding,  but no one was creating them and they didn't exist. 

So if you had to guess, who or what is creating them in our current story?

[Brad Stark]

20 minutes ago, LordBlakeney said:

So if you had to guess, who or what is creating them in our current story?

I'd guess Whitetree and Craster have something to do with it.  I think the people were turned into White Walkers, and this only started a generation ago.  In the mummers version, the White Walkers, specifically the Night's King, are turning Craster's kids.  In the books,  I suspect we will find someone else doing it, someone similar to BR, possibly a character we haven't met.  Grrm has hinted we might be dealing with a new Nights King,  not the one from 8000 years ago, and it could be a living person.   My bet is someone from house Stark.

[LordBlakeney]

6 minutes ago, Brad Stark said:

My bet is someone from house Stark.

What candidates from house Stark could still be popping around? Do you think Lyanna or Benjen might be still alive? Or maybe someone from an older, but more recent generation like Ned's grandfather or something?

Haven't really thought about this just kind of wondering what would make you place your bet there.

[Black Crow]

10 hours ago, shizett said:

Even more importantly, the annals are what he brings up, as they probably have the most important info. I really cannot see what would make it into NW annals other than a sighting? Why would someone index a book or an interesting piece of info in a yearly short report of events?!

Its worth making the point that GRRM certainly knows the difference between a narrative history and annals since he gives us the specific example of the Annals of the Black Centaur - tedious precisely because it records what happened each day - essentially its a diary of events.

[Black Crow]

5 hours ago, Brad Stark said:

Most of us assume the white walkers have been around since The Long Night.   While this is possible,  consider the alternative.   White Walkers were created as a weapon in the Long Night,  and have sporadically been created by magic users since.  They haven't been seen, and not because they were hiding,  but no one was creating them and they didn't exist. 

Created or rather changed, certainly, but I'm mindful that cold preserves - and that what is dead may never die...

[Black Crow]

3 hours ago, Brad Stark said:

 Grrm has hinted we might be dealing with a new Nights King,  not the one from 8000 years ago...

Not to my knowledge. There was a lot of speculation whipped up by the appearance of a Nights King in the mummers' version, but GRRM said very firmly that the Nights King was a figure out of legend. At no point did he hint that there was a new one.

[Black Crow]

10 hours ago, Feather Crystal said:

I was under the impression Sam was searching through ancient records, thus his report that many were crumbling. I don't know how the library was sorted, but he may have just started with the most ancient records he could find regardless of what it was.

I think Sam was having problems locating anything. He grumbled earlier that he was sorting through inventories of food and that kind of thing. I don't recall it being specifically mentioned but I had the impression that any order had been lost when the archives from all the abandoned castles were dumped there.

[shizett]

9 hours ago, Feather Crystal said:

I was under the impression Sam was searching through ancient records, thus his report that many were crumbling. I don't know how the library was sorted, but he may have just started with the most ancient records he could find regardless of what it was.

1 hour ago, Black Crow said:

I think Sam was having problems locating anything. He grumbled earlier that he was sorting through inventories of food and that kind of thing. I don't recall it being specifically mentioned but I had the impression that any order had been lost when the archives from all the abandoned castles were dumped there.

I agree with BC here. It is hard to know where he stands on the resources in the library. He does not seem to have a method. Even more frustratingly he does not cite his resources for the info he provides Jon, so it is even harder to figure out his line of thought or method to gathering of information.

 

[shizett]

11 hours ago, Black Crow said:

But they are not a danger if they are just white shadows occasionally seen [and avoided] in the woods. Annals, as I said, are chronological lists of events as distinct from histories. To be recorded in the annals an event has to have occurred, but that event doesn't have to be a battle or massacre, it could just as easily be a sighting of white walkers on the shore near Eastwatch, it doesn't have to be the battle of Waterloo.

True true, but how would they know unless they look into them in every instance of the sighting?
I would also like to add that while we have Gared's POV for the GOT pilot, we never see a bulb lit up as he places the WWs. He is as stunned as the reader and he never shows any indication that he know who these shadows are. At that point, they are already far from the wall and well into the wildling/WWs territory. I would imagine he would show an indication of recognition if he indeed was familiar with the shadows but was surprised by their actions. We were in his head after all. As Mormont tells Tyrion, Gared was a very seasoned ranger, if the NW familiarity with the WWs theory is true, he would have known for sure.

11 hours ago, Matthew. said:

Precisely, and the latter point you raise is one of the issues I have with this interpretation: not only has the text not created a context in which encountering a WW has become a mundane part of the NW's job, but there is also not a single line of text to suggest that there's any belief within the Watch that the WWs had lost the ability to raise wights, nor that it's only the reappearance of wights that makes the WWs dangerous.

Rather than being an interpretation that one arrives at naturally by reading the text, it is instead a theory crafted for the specific purpose of supporting a different theory.

While I definitely agree with your overall point, Mormont's nonchalant comments about the White Shadow sighting near the Eastwatch and their appearance in the annals would count as evidence towards some familiarity in the watch with them. It might be that the information is not widely distributed or is false, but there is something there. While some might be more eager to accept that interpretation more readily than others, I also think that they are important anomalies that need to be addressed and not dismissed.

11 hours ago, Matthew. said:

"Many" accounts exist of intermittent encounters with giants and CotF, yet if Sam is to be believed, information on the Others is quite scarce. To repeat my earlier point, this is not an accident, but the entire point--the Others are not a race with which one might trade, they're a magic being that is crafted to kill men. The reason nobody has been encountering the Others is because, for a long time, nobody was making new Others.

I haven't read the worldbook so my sudden realization might be quite mundane to those who have, but I just realized that these accounts might be the reason why BR left in search of the COTF and not being contacted by them.

As for the scarcity of encounters with the Others, any number larger than zero is problematic in my worldview. If they are encountered, even once in every century, one would expect the watch to regard these sightings with utmost vigilance instead of forgetting the problem altogether and moving on to the Wildlings. Sam is, irrationally and quite surprisingly I might add, upset there are few mentions of them in the annals where as he should be shocked by the lost knowledge in light of "recorded" incidents of WWs sighting by the watch. (I still am under the impression that annals are reports of events and not just a collection of important/useful information.)

[shizett]

6 hours ago, Brad Stark said:

Most of us assume the white walkers have been around since The Long Night.

We do? I was under the complete opposite impression. It really surprised me when Sam started looking into the annals for records of the Others.

[shizett]

In relation to the timelines and that specific conversation between Jon and Sam, I also would like to bring this part up as well:

(Be wary of major crackpot)

Quote

He [Sam] shifted in his seat. “My lord, when I was looking through the annals I came on another boy commander. Four hundred years before the Conquest. Osric Stark was ten when he was chosen, but he served for sixty years. That’s four, my lord. You’re not even close to being the youngest ever chosen. You’re fifth youngest, so far.”
“The younger four all being sons, brothers, or bastards of the King in the North. Tell me something useful. Tell me of our enemy.” (aFfC, Samwell I)

Sam never mentions whether he read the annals of the Osric Stark's reign or he just read about him somewhere else (he seems to be implying he read them). Jon dismissed the info off hand, but it is rather a very interesting information. That is after we dismiss the obvious foreshadowing about Jon's role and relations.

We have five (including Jon) minors who have been elected to be the LC of night watch, and all of them are Starks. Starks are volunteer NW-men, why would a minor volunteer for the NW and be elected as its LC? Looking at Jon's own story, he only joined because of Cat (Ned and Benjen were both against him joining so young) and that was clearly shown in the story as a failing on Cat's part and not normal at all.

We see time and time again that minors are only put in important positions because older, more capable people are either dead, gone to war, or somehow not accessible. Jon was elected as the LC only because Mormont and Qhorin Halfhand (and many other seasoned rangers) were dead, Benjen Stark was MIA, other candidates like Thorn were very divisive, AND he was a Stark. It would logically follow that these minor Stark LCs would follow this trend.

Unfortunately because Sam never discloses his sources for his information, it is unclear whether these minor Stark LCs have anything to do with the scarce sightings of the Others (in the annals) and their seemingly powerless existence. It would be very interesting if they did, as it might be the case that the NW naturally (or by Aemon's implicit manipulation) made the right choice when they chose Jon (Snow/Stark) as the LC, although they did so after the Starks were out of WF and then they proceeded to kill him (which obviously did not happen to Osric Stark as lived to be 70).

[Brad Stark]

8 hours ago, LordBlakeney said:

What candidates from house Stark could still be popping around? Do you think Lyanna or Benjen might be still alive? Or maybe someone from an older, but more recent generation like Ned's grandfather or something?

Haven't really thought about this just kind of wondering what would make you place your bet there.

I think Benjen is still around,  but I don’t think it is him.  I bet there is a story to why Benjen is at the Wall, I think he did something wrong.   I am not saying it has to be a Stark listed in the family tree, but Ned has another sibling not talked about,  and we've heard almost nothing of the generation before him.  Any one of them could have a bastard. 

Speaking of bastards, why is Craster doing what he does?  Maybe he's just a pervert who enjoys it, but I think there is a deeper reason.  Grrm puts a lot of importance on blood,  especially magic.  Suppose Craster has valuable blood (such as we've seen with Roberts bastards and Melisandre).  Rather than sacrificing him,  whoever he's working for wants him to churn out as many kids, preferably closely related kids, as possible.  He isn't directly working with The Others,  or he wouldn't be friendly to The Watch.  We've seen his home village wiped out, and the surrounding villages, with some evidence they were sacrificed, yet he survived.

My guess is Craster's father was a Stark and someone learned how to turn male Stark babies into White Walkers.  As long as he stays in the North making babies,  he can live, but will get turned into a White Walker himself if he doesn't go along with the plan. 

 We've read a record of The Night's King was wiped out,  which I believe is to prevent people from doing what he did, and I think someone figured out how. It could be Craster's father himself,  or really anyone else,  including a character thats never been introduced. 

[Matthew.]

7 hours ago, shizett said:

While I definitely agree with your overall point, Mormont's nonchalant comments about the White Shadow sighting near the Eastwatch and their appearance in the annals would count as evidence towards some familiarity in the watch with them.

His comment is not nonchalant, and I'm tempted to say that's a mischaracterization that has arisen in this thread specifically, where Mormont's quote is often presented without all of the surrounding context of his conversation with Tyrion.

To revisit:
 

Quote

There can be no mistake, Aemon has had letters from the Citadel, findings in accord with his own. The end of summer stares us in the face." Mormont reached out and clutched Tyrion tightly by the hand. "You must make them understand. I tell you, my lord, the darkness is coming. There are wild things in the woods, direwolves and mammoths and snow bears the size of aurochs, and I have seen darker shapes in my dreams."

"In your dreams," Tyrion echoed, thinking how badly he needed another strong drink.

Mormont was deaf to the edge in his voice. "The fisherfolk near Eastwatch have glimpsed white walkers on the shore."

This time Tyrion could not hold his tongue. "The fisherfolk of Lannisport often glimpse merlings."

"Denys Mallister writes that the mountain people are moving south, slipping past the Shadow Tower in numbers greater than ever before. They are running, my lord … but running from what?" Lord Mormont moved to the window and stared out into the night. "These are old bones, Lannister, but they have never felt a chill like this. Tell the king what I say, I pray you. Winter is coming, and when the Long Night falls, only the Night's Watch will stand between the realm and the darkness that sweeps from the north. The gods help us all if we are not ready."

I apologize for the rather long quote, but seeing the fuller conversation is important--when Mormont's fisherfolk sighting is taken in isolation, it's often presented here as though he's being matter fact, as though he's relaying a bit of information that he finds to be no more notable than a bear sighting or whatever, but the surrounding context here is clear.

Despite the fact that there hasn't been another Long Night since the Watch's founding, Mormont fears it has come again; this is not nonchalant, it is not unconcerned.

Tyrion's reaction reveals the issue with the WW sighting, and the reason that Mormont isn't sounding the alarm bells, even though he has troubling suspicions--Tyrion's reaction is not to disbelieve that a WW has been spotted that far south, but that it has been spotted at all, thus the comparison to a mythical creature, something whose very existence is doubted. Furthermore, there's an element of elitism, as the source ("the fisherfolk") is easy to discount, from Tyrion's point of view. "Yeah, sure, we have superstitious peasants in Lannisport as well."

My take away has always been that, had this white walker sighting come from a source that Mormont considered more credible, the tone would be even more urgent and insistent; as it stands, he falls short of actually being able to say that the white walkers are back.

 

7 hours ago, shizett said:

As for the scarcity of encounters with the Others, any number larger than zero is problematic in my worldview. If they are encountered, even once in every century, one would expect the watch to regard these sightings with utmost vigilance instead of forgetting the problem altogether and moving on to the Wildlings.

I agree. If someone has been raised in Westerosi culture, then joined the organization that was ostensibly founded to combat the Others, and then they actually encountered one of the Others, this would be the most important event in their life.

[Black Crow]

I know that Matthew doesn't like the idea of the Others lurking in the background all the time and we've rehearsed our respective arguments for long enough, but denying them is to deny the annals and the way that the story is moving.

This current thread is about the timelines and how our perceptions of history are being changed. At the outset we were told by various means that the Pact was agreed all of 10,000 years ago; that the Long Night fell 8,000 years ago and that the Andals [depending on whether you believe the Arryns] arrived 4,000 or even 6,000 years ago.However, as laid out in the preceding pages we've since been told different and now see much shorter time periods involved.

Similarly we were originally told, largely by those same sources, that the Children of the Forest and the Others have been dead thousands of years past. But as the story goes on we find that both of them are still around. Why draw a distinction between the two by accepting that one has been here all the time but the other has not?