Heresy 195 and the Mists of Time

[Lord Wraith]

12 hours ago, Black Crow said:

Save it for Heresy 196 when we start i on The Wall 

Will do.

[LynnS]

20 hours ago, Feather Crystal said:

This is amazing, because I had not made the connection before between the physical flying out the moon door at the Eyrie with the third eye flying in dreams! Now that you've brought it up it cannot be unseen.

I'll add the story of the Winged Knight of the Vale during the age of Heroes who was said to have flown upon a huge falcon, and who won the Vale in a battle against the Griffin King atop the Giant's Lance. He was also said to have been married to a children of the forest who died giving birth to his son.

Edit - crashed before I could finish.

I've wondered for a while about that legend and the symbolism in the architecture of the various gates and waycastles; if we are being given the order of things rather than a timeline, regarding the Wall and the Black Gate via Catelyn's progression to the Eyrie.  For example, the winter seat of the Arryn's being the first castle built curiously named The Gates of the Moon with the Arryns styled as the Keepers of the Gate.  It calls to mind the Night Fort, the Black Gate and it's gatekeeper, Coldhands.  So I wonder if there isn't something of the legend of the Night's King veiled within the story of the Winged Knight and in the history of House Arryn.  Once the Eyrie is reached, where no weirwood can grow, the power of the old gods seems to have been overthrown represented by the wierwood stump as a throne and a moon door where the guilty are actually thrown to their death. 

What is the significance of the battlements leading to the Eyrie?  The Bloody Gate for example, where the knight of the gate also asks "who would pass?"    The gate held by House Royce which appears to be an offshoot of House Stark through Beron Stark and his wife Lorra Royce.

In House Arryn’s sigil, we also have the representation of the moon and the falcon, their words “as high as honor” and the geography of the Mountains of the Moon and the Veil of Arryn .   

 

This calls to mind Bran’s coma dream where he is far above the earth and can see across continents. That’s higher than the crow’s eye view or the eagle’s eye view.   This Is what I refer to as the moon’s eye view since we also have the moon personified as an eye in the sky.  Bran himself discovers that he doesn’t have to skinchange a bird or a tree to watch from above.    Dany also has a similar dream of floating up into the sky, flying when she has her dream of the dragon singing.  She also has the moon’s eye view of the world.

 

So when we talk about the Dothraki legend of two moons in the sky are we literally talking about moons or is this a methaphor for someone who can fly and use the moon’s eye view?  One of whom flies too close to the sun, breaks open and then dragons are born.  Dany’s dream of splitting open during MMD’s ritual to save her sun and stars seems to echo that tale.

Could it be that Artys Arryn could also fly as high as the moon and a falcon?  That he was able to lift the veil and see beyond?  Is there a moon maiden in the story of House Arryn?  Is this what is meant by the mountains of the veil; that is was once the seat of the moon (maiden)?  The Eyrie, an eagle’s nest, the maiden’s tower, the place where she was kept?   If one of the moon’s maidens gives birth to dragons; what of the other moon’s maiden?

[LynnS]

On 2017-02-20 at 3:32 AM, Black Crow said:

No, I'm not really a believer either, in comets depositing a shower of magic pixie dust from their tails but there's clearly a connection of some kind

Off topic, but I don't think the oily black stone comes from comets or meteors either.  If GRRM is making some comment about climate change; I think it's more likely that he is referring to oil shale or bitumen soaked stone and those black roads in Essos sound suspiciously like asphalt to me.   But more curiously; vanadium, a rare metal used in steel alloys, a transition metal, is also found in conjunction with shale oil deposits and isn't this interesting:

Valyrian steel swords that drink in the sun... 

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-27829874

 

 

[Black Crow]

2 hours ago, LynnS said:

Could it be that Artys Arryn could also fly as high as the moon and a falcon?  That he was able to lift the veil and see beyond?  Is there a moon maiden in the story of House Arryn?  Is this what is meant by the mountains of the veil; that is was once the seat of the moon (maiden)?  The Eyrie, an eagle’s nest, the maiden’s tower, the place where she was kept?   If one of the moon’s maidens gives birth to dragons; what of the other moon’s maiden?

An interesting one. I'm not sure how far to take the moon by itself, given that there's an SSM out there in which GRRM denied that there's any significance to the Moonsingers.

What does occur to me, however, on reading your essay is that Artys Arryn might well have been a skinchanger [if not a warg] and flew to do battle on the Giant's Lance not by riding on the back of an improbably large falcon, but by riding within it.

[LynnS]

15 minutes ago, Black Crow said:

An interesting one. I'm not sure how far to take the moon by itself, given that there's an SSM out there in which GRRM denied that there's any significance to the Moonsingers.

What does occur to me, however, on reading your essay is that Artys Arryn might well have been a skinchanger [if not a warg] and flew to do battle on the Giant's Lance not by riding on the back of an improbably large falcon, but by riding within it.

I don't put much meaning into the moonsingers at this point.  I think this is something completely different from being able to use the moon's eye-third eye view of the world.  It does sound like Artys Arryn had that third eye/warging ability.

[Brad Stark]

I am surprised no one said anything about the oily black stones since we are on timelines.  This seems to be tied to an earlier civilization,  but also seems to be wrong or evil.  It may or may not be related to the black stones of Valyria such as dragonstone and the base of high tower.

[LynnS]

15 minutes ago, Brad Stark said:

I am surprised no one said anything about the oily black stones since we are on timelines.  This seems to be tied to an earlier civilization,  but also seems to be wrong or evil.  It may or may not be related to the black stones of Valyria such as dragonstone and the base of high tower.

What were the slaves of Valyria doing in the mines?  I have no idea.  An abundance of oily black stones slag heaps?

[Black Crow]

1 hour ago, Brad Stark said:

I am surprised no one said anything about the oily black stones since we are on timelines.  This seems to be tied to an earlier civilization,  but also seems to be wrong or evil.  It may or may not be related to the black stones of Valyria such as dragonstone and the base of high tower.

I don't think we're given enough to make anything of them in themselves. Its clearly part of GRRM's world building though and ultimately, although I think we'll never learn anything of those who worked the black stones, the point of them is that the known timeline is screwed in that the First Men were nothing of the sort; there were older civilisations which preceded them.

[Frey family reunion]

2 hours ago, Black Crow said:

An interesting one. I'm not sure how far to take the moon by itself, given that there's an SSM out there in which GRRM denied that there's any significance to the Moonsingers.

What does occur to me, however, on reading your essay is that Artys Arryn might well have been a skinchanger [if not a warg] and flew to do battle on the Giant's Lance not by riding on the back of an improbably large falcon, but by riding within it.

I'd discount it if Martin himself has said that he really isn't much of a world builder.  He distinguished himself from Tolkien with this analogy.  Tolkien's world was like a glacier, his story only showed a brief segment of his world, but there was a huge amount of his world that remained hidden under the water.  Martin said his story was more like ice on a raft.  He only built his world up as was necessary for the story.

[Black Crow]

1 hour ago, Frey family reunion said:

I'd discount it if Martin himself has said that he really isn't much of a world builder.  He distinguished himself from Tolkien with this analogy.  Tolkien's world was like a glacier, his story only showed a brief segment of his world, but there was a huge amount of his world that remained hidden under the water.  Martin said his story was more like ice on a raft.  He only built his world up as was necessary for the story.

Up to a point. I think the difference between them is that GRRM is indeed a gardener or sorts. While Tolkein's world is carefully constructed, GRRM's garden is full of weeds which serve to thicken the borders and shrubbery but otherwise have no place in the grand design and are of no significance in themselves.

In the case of the black stones, they might be likened to a rockery, hinting at romantic ruins but serving no practical purpose.

[Brad Stark]

1 hour ago, Frey family reunion said:

I'd discount it if Martin himself has said that he really isn't much of a world builder.  He distinguished himself from Tolkien with this analogy.  Tolkien's world was like a glacier, his story only showed a brief segment of his world, but there was a huge amount of his world that remained hidden under the water.  Martin said his story was more like ice on a raft.  He only built his world up as was necessary for the story.

All the more reason to believe these stones are necessary for the story. 

[Black Crow]

1 hour ago, Brad Stark said:

All the more reason to believe these stones are necessary for the story. 

No, that's where I disagree. For Tolkein everything had its place, its purpose and its history. Not only was his world like a glacier but the story moved like one too. GRRM's world-building is altogether of a different order.

Oh, and he did mention that he put lots of legends into the books such as Bran the Builder. Bran the builder is supposed to have built the Wall, Winterfell, and Storms End. GRRM mentioned that he has become a legend so that people will look at a structure and say "wow, it must have been built by Bran the Builder" when it actually was not. This is GRRM's attempt on creating a world with myths and legends so if at some point you see, "They say it was built by Bran the Builder or Lann the Clever" realize that its part of the mythos.

 

[Frey family reunion]

2 minutes ago, Black Crow said:

No, that's where I disagree. For Tolkein everything had its place, its purpose and its history. Not only was his world like a glacier but the story moved like one too. GRRM's world-building is altogether of a different order.

Oh, and he did mention that he put lots of legends into the books such as Bran the Builder. Bran the builder is supposed to have built the Wall, Winterfell, and Storms End. GRRM mentioned that he has become a legend so that people will look at a structure and say "wow, it must have been built by Bran the Builder" when it actually was not. This is GRRM's attempt on creating a world with myths and legends so if at some point you see, "They say it was built by Bran the Builder or Lann the Clever" realize that its part of the mythos.

 

 

GRRM just writes like a glacier.

[aDanceWithFlagons]

6 hours ago, Frey family reunion said:

GRRM just writes like a glacier.

 

 

[Black Crow]

but true... 

[Lord Wraith]

15 hours ago, Frey family reunion said:

I'd discount it if Martin himself has said that he really isn't much of a world builder.  He distinguished himself from Tolkien with this analogy.  Tolkien's world was like a glacier, his story only showed a brief segment of his world, but there was a huge amount of his world that remained hidden under the water.  Martin said his story was more like ice on a raft.  He only built his world up as was necessary for the story.

So all the lovecraft references are just excess ice? We don't need to worry about the Old or Deep Ones coming out of Stygai?

Also do you have a linkable quote for this? 

13 hours ago, Frey family reunion said:

GRRM just writes like a glacier.

QotY this. Maybe Martin writes like an ice sculpturer and not a gardener.

[Black Crow]

Getting back to serious stuff. There is a serious problem with the black basalt stuff which may actually offer a solution to some of the timeline contradictions.

Lets keep it simple by focusing on Moat Caillin. As described it is a massive structure, but a ruin. Unlike everywhere else in Westeros we have no back-story. We don't know who built it and we don't know who destroyed it, yet it occupies a singularly important position. This is underlined by Catelyn Stark's POV when we have a reference to an original wooden keep, rotted away 1,000 years before. That falls within what passes for recorded in Westeros, yet once again we have nothing. There is no reason not to suppose that when the Andal armies broke themselves against Moat Caillin, the castle was already a ruin. This doesn't fit into the orderly progression from hairy men in furs to the High Middle Ages of the present.

So step back at this point. Here on Heresy we have tried to make sense of the relationship between the First Men and the Children of the Forest by discussing the possibility that the Long Night, far from being a random event, was brought down the the Three-Fingered Tree-Huggers and was what forced men to agree the Pact. But lets put that idea aside and go back to the original timeline, but latterly foreshortened to place the coming of the Andals at no more than 2,000 years ago and as little as 1,000 years ago. Now let's retain the same headway for the Long Night. Ignoring the individual dates, Maester Luwin's history allows a gap of 4,000 years between the Long Night and the coming of the Andals. This appears to be confirmed by GRRM in his later writing. If the Andals tooled up 2,000 years ago then 4,000 years back would take us to 6,000 years ago; the dating we're now being given in the World Book for the Long Night. Apply that same gap to the Andals not coming over until 1,000 years ago and the Long Night correspondingly shuffles forward to just 5,000 years ago.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch. In her tale of the Long Night, Old Nan describes an apocalyptic near-extinction event during which kings froze in their castles. Were those "castles" technically unsophisticated ringworks like the one on the Fist, or did they include Moat Caillin?

[Brad Stark]

Back to the black rocks, I think they are all basalt and all products of fire magic.   We have no evidence of any of them being quarried or matching the surrounding geology,  and they seem rare and unusual.   The toadstone is a rough carving, the seastone chair is an elaborate carving, we have cities made of blocks, carved mazes, plain fused stone like the Hightower and elaborate fused stone like dragonstone. Some of these are oily  (but we don't know if that is how they look or feel or both) and feel evil or wrong. 

I think we had prevalyrians who could raise black rocks from the earth.  In some of these civilizations, magic was abused, leaving an evil feeling.

All of this is to show civilization using and abusing magic was around much longer than civilization in our world. 

[Black Crow]

I don't think that the detail will matter one way or the other if they're all dead and gone. I think that what matters is that structures like Moat Caillin don't fit into the timeline we've been told and instead point to a lost pre-Winter civilisation. Where it may matter is in the realisation that if it was indeed destroyed in or rather by the Long Night, then the same is going to happen again as Winter closes in, unless it can somehow be averted.

[Brad Stark]

I don't know where you are going with Moat Caillin, unless you assumed the first men couldn't build it.  Some of the most impressive stone work in our world  (Pyramids,  Stonehenge) were built by pre iron civilization, and this makes even more sense in a world magic is used to build buildings.  I just assumed the First Men built it, or it could be even before them.