Heresy 196 and a look at the Wall

[LynnS]

7 hours ago, ravenous reader said:

Yeah -- the heart tree!

I'm thinking of the ancient greenseer trapped in the black gate.  He's the analog of a dragon trapped in a tree that you often find in many comparative mythologies.  

Alternatively, maybe the dragon as Wall has swallowed him?  There's all that talk of the 'ice dragon's gullet' or 'bowels'.

 

7 hours ago, GloubieBoulga said:

The greenseer of the black gate, yes. That remind me that I always wonder why the pool at the feet of the heart tree at Winterfell is cold, and the other pools are warm (at my first read, I just believed there was a mistake in the text)

The location of Winterfell seems to have been chosen because of the hot springs, and I wonder now if the cold pool was always cold or if it became cold. 

I wonder about the weirwood at Whitetree.  So far it's the only weirwood with an actual mouth carved into it which recieves offerings burnt and otherwise large enough to stuff a sheep.  The Black Gate is a mouth that opens to consume whomever passes and possibly shed a warm salty tear.  This brings to mind the old, old man staring blindly encountered by Dany among the undead in the House of Undying.  Another place where you must enter through door shaped like a mouth.  Perhaps this is the Black Gate where the soul is trapped.    Before she sees the Undying she passes through the doors of the House of Black and White.  There must be some significance to the old man and woman sitting at the table where the blue heart is rendered up for consumption.  

[LynnS]

The subject of GRRM's small but significant plot device keeps coming up in conversation.  So far in the context of Jon not being able to sense Ghost if they are separated by the Wall.  Another point to consider is that Othor and Jafr can't pass the Wall unless they are brought inside.  Passing the Wall this way doesn't remove their zombie animus but I wonder what this says about Jon.  Perhaps he can't acquire blue eyes if he is interred in an ice cell and ultimately the Wall will protect him.  

[LynnS]

To go back to the 'true name' business about Jon.   There is also an allusion to the 'true steel' which I find interesting:
 

Quote

 

A Clash of Kings - Jon I

And his brothers?"

Jon asked.The armorer considered that a moment. "Robert was the true steel. Stannis is pure iron, black and hard and strong, yes, but brittle, the way iron gets. He'll break before he bends. And Renly, that one, he's copper, bright and shiny, pretty to look at but not worth all that much at the end of the day."

 

 

[LynnS]

A brief aside to consider Craster's Silver Darlings:

Quote

Like the Newmarket sausage or the Stornoway black pudding, the Craster kipper (sometimes called by aficionados simply "the Craster"^[1] ) is a British food named after, and strongly associated with, its place of origin. Although the herrings used for Craster kippers may not be strictly local,^[2] the defining characteristic of the Craster kipper is that the smoking process takes place in a smokehouse located in or around the village of Craster.

Clarissa Dickson Wright has named Craster as the birthplace of the kipper.^[3] There is however some dispute over this – other places, including the nearby town of Seahouses, also claim this distinction.

Preparation and characteristics

Although a long-standing tradition in Craster, commercial kipper production is currently only continued there by L. Robson & Sons, using their 100-year-old smokehouses.^[4]

The preparation process begins with selected raw North Sea herrings, known locally as "silver darlings".^[5] These are split, gutted and washed,^[6] soaked in brine, and then taken to the smokehouse where they are cured over smouldering oak and white wood shavings for sixteen hours.^[7] The famous smokehouse is unmistakable — a stone building often with white plumes pouring out of the wooden vents in the roof.^[8]

 

Quote

A red herring is something that misleads or distracts from a relevant or important issue. It may be either a logical fallacy or a literary device that leads readers or audiences towards a false conclusion.

It originated from a news story by English journalist William Cobbett, c. 1805, in which he claimed that as a boy he used a red herring (a cured and salted herring) to mislead hounds following a trail; the story served as an extended metaphor for the London press, which had earned Cobbett's ire by publishing false news

Schmaltz herring (Yiddish) is herring caught just before spawning, when the fat (schmaltz) in the fish is at a maximum. Colloquially, schmaltz herring refers to this fish pickled in brine: see pickled herring.

 

So what do Schmobert and Schmatelyn have to do with salt and smoke?  Is it that Schmatelyn's offspring are salted?

Quote

A Game of Thrones - Arya V

He had a knife in his other hand.

As the blade flashed toward her face, Arya threw herself backward, kicking wildly, wrenching her head from side to side, but he had her by the hair, so strong, she could feel her scalp tearing, and on her lips the salt taste of tears.

A Game of Thrones - Sansa VI

This time the knight grasped her beneath the jaw and held her head still as he struck her. He hit her twice, left to right, and harder, right to left. Her lip split and blood ran down her chin, to mingle with the salt of her tears.

A Storm of Swords - Bran IV

"Then pass," the door said. Its lips opened, wide and wider and wider still, until nothing at all remained but a great gaping mouth in a ring of wrinkles. Sam stepped aside and waved Jojen through ahead of him. Summer followed, sniffing as he went, and then it was Bran's turn. Hodor ducked, but not low enough. The door's upper lip brushed softly against the top of Bran's head, and a drop of water fell on him and ran slowly down his nose. It was strangely warm, and salty as a tear.

 

While Schmobert's offspring are smoked?

 

Quote

 

A Dance with Dragons - Jon XIII

Then Bowen Marsh stood there before him, tears running down his cheeks. "For the Watch." He punched Jon in the belly. When he pulled his hand away, the dagger stayed where he had buried it.

Jon fell to his knees. He found the dagger's hilt and wrenched it free. In the cold night air the wound was smoking. "Ghost," he whispered. Pain washed over him. Stick them with the pointy end. When the third dagger took him between the shoulder blades, he gave a grunt and fell face-first into the snow. He never felt the fourth knife. Only the cold …

 

[GloubieBoulga]

1 hour ago, LynnS said:

To go back to the 'true name' business about Jon.   There is also an allusion to the 'true steel' which I find interesting:
 

 

Ah, indeed, I had the project to study precisely this chapter of Jon flying from the Night Watch as the first forging of Lightbringer (I mean the metal was forged from the arrival, with the most hot moment with Othor and Jafer's attack, and Ned's death and the fly corresponding to the first quenching in water, where the sword breaks). I had missed the "true name" stuff, but I think you have a good intuition here, and that there is a link (at least symbolical). Thanks !

 

1 hour ago, LynnS said:

This brings to mind the old, old man staring blindly encountered by Dany among the undead in the House of Undying.  Another place where you must enter through door shaped like a mouth.  Perhaps this is the Black Gate where the soul is trapped.    Before she sees the Undying she passes through the doors of the House of Black and White.  There must be some significance to the old man and woman sitting at the table where the blue heart is rendered up for consumption.  

Yes, the House of the Undying shares many things with the weirwood's stuff, where the Undying have the place of the greenseers; and I usually see the burning of the heart by Drogo as a foreshadowing of the burning of the Heart of Winter. As I have noted in a previous post, Dany has also some interesting walls in her way, imo each pointing one characteristic or one part of the story of the Wall. 

 

[Black Crow]

10 minutes ago, LynnS said:

 

So what do Schmobert and Schmatelyn have to do with salt and smoke?  Is it that Schmatelyn's offspring are salted?

I think that as I said earlier, the point of the passage about Bran entering the portal, both in its wording and its prominence is simply that the door isn't a slab of weirwood at all but a living, or rather undying prisoner.

No fish are necessary

[LynnS]

47 minutes ago, Black Crow said:

I think that as I said earlier, the point of the passage about Bran entering the portal, both in its wording and its prominence is simply that the door isn't a slab of weirwood at all but a living, or rather undying prisoner.

No fish are necessary

There is a point to Craster's kippers outside of the additional fact of the Black Gate's existence..  The prophecy that AA or the PtwP is born of salt and smoke is phrased two ways in the text:

- born amidst salt tears and smoke

Further, amidst/amid are similar in meaning to – but distinct from – amongst/among. Amid(st) denotes that something is "in the midst of", "surrounded by" other things, and is used when the idea of separate things is not prominent.

- and born in salt and smoke.

Additionally, I think it does point to Craster's boys becoming the white shadows or silver darlings.  To remove the salt, soak in water.

The Black Gate may also explain why Coldhands doesn't have blue eyes, if he once passed through the gate and tasted it's salt tear.

The whole business of the Iron Born drowning in salt water and the priests sipping salt water points to the relevance of the salt tear.

Let's not forget Patchface resurrected from the sea and his ditty about the big fish eating the little fish. The Wall is another form of Big Fish.

Addendum - Ice Dragons or icebergs; big fish floating on the water:

The World of Ice and Fire - Beyond the Free Cities: The Shivering Sea

They tell of pale blue mists that move across the waters, mists so cold that any ship they pass over is frozen instantly; of drowned spirits who rise at night to drag the living down into the grey-green depths; of mermaids pale of flesh with black-scaled tails, far more malign than their sisters of the south.

supposedly breathe cold, a chill so terrible that it can freeze a man solid in half a heartbeat. dragons ice can truly be said to be common) breathe flame, dragon (if any dragons, with eyes of pale blue crystal and vast translucent wings through which the moon and stars can be glimpsed as they wheel across the sky. Whereas common ice of Valyria, are said to be made of living dragons. These colossal beasts, many times larger than the dragons iceOf all the queer and fabulous denizens of the Shivering Sea, however, the greatest are the

Sailors from half a hundred nations have glimpsed these great beasts over the centuries, so mayhaps there is some truth behind the tales. Archmaester Margate has suggested that many legends of the north—freezing mists, ice ships, Cannibal Bay, and the like—can be explained as distorted reports of ice-dragon activity. Though an amusing notion, and not without a certain elegance, this remains the purest conjecture. As ice dragons supposedly melt when slain, no actual proof of their existence has ever been found.

The World of Ice and Fire - Beyond the Free Cities: The Shivering Sea

Of all the queer and fabulous denizens of the Shivering Sea, however, the greatest are the ice dragons. These colossal beasts, many times larger than the dragons of Valyria, are said to be made of living ice, with eyes of pale blue crystal and vast translucent wings through which the moon and stars can be glimpsed as they wheel across the sky. Whereas common dragons (if any dragon can truly be said to be common) breathe flame, ice dragons supposedly breathe cold, a chill so terrible that it can freeze a man solid in half a heartbeat.

supposedly melt when slain, no actual proof of their existence has ever been found.dragons ice activity. Though an amusing notion, and not without a certain elegance, this remains the purest conjecture. As dragon-ice ships, Cannibal Bay, and the like—can be explained as distorted reports of iceSailors from half a hundred nations have glimpsed these great beasts over the centuries, so mayhaps there is some truth behind the tales. Archmaester Margate has suggested that many legends of the north—freezing mists,

Let us put aside such fancies and return to fact. Despite the sinister legends that have grown up around its northernly reaches, the waters of the Shivering Sea teem with life. Hundreds of varieties of fish swim through its depths, including salmon, wolf fish, sand lances, grey skates, lampreys and other eels, whitefish, char, shark, herring, mackerel, and cod. Crabs and lobsters (some of truly monstrous size) are found everywhere along its shores, whilst seals, narwhals, walruses, and sea lions have their rookeries and breeding grounds on and around the countless rocky islands and sea stacks. 

 

[LynnS]

1 hour ago, GloubieBoulga said:

Yes, the House of the Undying shares many things with the weirwood's stuff, where the Undying have the place of the greenseers; and I usually see the burning of the heart by Drogo as a foreshadowing of the burning of the Heart of Winter. As I have noted in a previous post, Dany has also some interesting walls in her way, imo each pointing one characteristic or one part of the story of the Wall.

I intend it to be the focus of Part II - The Hinges of the World to follow the next Heresy on Old Nan's Tales.  These places, along with the House of Black and White  seem interconnected or put together with crooked stitches, with roads that cross each other;  a tangled knot to be teased apart. 

[JNR]

9 hours ago, Black Crow said:

I think that as I said earlier, the point of the passage about Bran entering the portal, both in its wording and its prominence is simply that the door isn't a slab of weirwood at all but a living, or rather undying prisoner.

Well, the passage is quite a simple one and reads:

Quote

The Black Gate, Sam had called it, but it wasn't black at all.

It was white weirwood, and there was a face on it.

I think this group can recognize a carved face on weirwood when they see it. 

Bran, the POV character, certainly can; he's been looking at another face, also carved of weirwood, all his life on the Winterfell heart tree.

Now, this particular face is animated and can ask questions and understand answers, etc, but to say that it isn't weirwood and that it is a prisoner seems awfully speculative.  It seems to me to be another instance of a carved weirwood face that has special magical properties that transcend the normal ones (which we learn in ADWD are all quite magical anyway).

Whether it's just a door or something even more important is an interesting unanswered question, of course.

Consider:

Quote

a crooked weirwood had burst up through the slate floor beside the huge central well, stretching slantwise toward the hole in the roof, its bone-white branches reaching for the sun. It was a queer kind of tree, skinnier than any other weirwood that Bran had ever seen and faceless as well

Maybe the boldfaced is because it's not a skinny faceless weirwood. 

It's a thick branch of a giant weirwood tree that most certainly does have a face... a face like no other weirwood we've ever seen in canon.  We call it the Black Gate.

If one had to ask "Why was the Nightfort built on this location, which is oddly somewhat off-center along the length of the Wall, as the first castle of the Watch?" such a tree might provide an interesting answer.

[ravenous reader]

1 hour ago, JNR said:

Well, the passage is quite a simple one and reads:

I think this group can recognize a carved face on weirwood when they see it. 

Bran, the POV character, certainly can; he's been looking at another face, also carved of weirwood, all his life on the Winterfell heart tree.

Now, this particular face is animated and can ask questions and understand answers, etc, but to say that it isn't weirwood and that it is a prisoner seems awfully speculative.  It seems to me to be another instance of a carved weirwood face that has special magical properties that transcend the normal ones (which we learn in ADWD are all quite magical anyway).

Whether it's just a door or something even more important is an interesting unanswered question, of course.

Consider:

Maybe the boldfaced is because it's not a skinny faceless weirwood. 

It's a thick branch of a giant weirwood tree that most certainly does have a face... a face like no other weirwood we've ever seen in canon.  We call it the Black Gate.

If one had to ask "Why was the Nightfort built on this location, which is oddly somewhat off-center along the length of the Wall, as the first castle of the Watch?" such a tree might provide an interesting answer.

Yes.

[LynnS]

1 hour ago, JNR said:

Well, the passage is quite a simple one and reads:

I think this group can recognize a carved face on weirwood when they see it. 

Bran, the POV character, certainly can; he's been looking at another face, also carved of weirwood, all his life on the Winterfell heart tree.

Now, this particular face is animated and can ask questions and understand answers, etc, but to say that it isn't weirwood and that it is a prisoner seems awfully speculative.  It seems to me to be another instance of a carved weirwood face that has special magical properties that transcend the normal ones (which we learn in ADWD are all quite magical anyway).

Whether it's just a door or something even more important is an interesting unanswered question, of course.

Consider:

Maybe the boldfaced is because it's not a skinny faceless weirwood. 

It's a thick branch of a giant weirwood tree that most certainly does have a face... a face like no other weirwood we've ever seen in canon.  We call it the Black Gate.

If one had to ask "Why was the Nightfort built on this location, which is oddly somewhat off-center along the length of the Wall, as the first castle of the Watch?" such a tree might provide an interesting answer.

Nice catch!

http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/iceandfire/images/e/ec/Beyond-the-Wall.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20131219003248

 

[ravenous reader]

Why is @Black Crow so fixated on the Black Gate not being a weirwood?

[Black Crow]

2 hours ago, ravenous reader said:

Why is @Black Crow so fixated on the Black Gate not being a weirwood?

Weirwoods don't cry

[ravenous reader]

7 minutes ago, Black Crow said:

Weirwoods don't cry

I think there are two 'phases' or 'types' of weirwood: 'fire and ice' (big surprise...)

The fiery weirwoods cry fire = blood (I think these two things are exchangeable currency and basically equivalent)

The icy weirwoods cry ice = sea water or blood serum (it's salty, after all)

The weirwood comprising the Wall is an icy one.

P.S.  the 'salty secretion' of the Black Gate wasn't necessarily a tear...It could've been saliva (after all, Bran is taken into an oral cavity) or even amniotic fluid (it is rather vaginal/cervical-like; Bran is being born/reborn...or unborn...)

It rolls down Bran's face, which indicates that it's Bran's tear; Bran is crying symbolically, not necessarily the weirwood.  Also, the solitary tear on the cheek reminds me of the tattoo of the Volantis slaves -- indicating that Bran is a prostitute and/or soldier indentured from now on to some unknown and possibly nefarious power.

[Brad Stark]

8 hours ago, JNR said:

Well, the passage is quite a simple one and reads:

I think this group can recognize a carved face on weirwood when they see it. 

Bran, the POV character, certainly can; he's been looking at another face, also carved of weirwood, all his life on the Winterfell heart tree.

Now, this particular face is animated and can ask questions and understand answers, etc, but to say that it isn't weirwood and that it is a prisoner seems awfully speculative.  It seems to me to be another instance of a carved weirwood face that has special magical properties that transcend the normal ones (which we learn in ADWD are all quite magical anyway).

Whether it's just a door or something even more important is an interesting unanswered question, of course.

Consider:

Maybe the boldfaced is because it's not a skinny faceless weirwood. 

It's a thick branch of a giant weirwood tree that most certainly does have a face... a face like no other weirwood we've ever seen in canon.  We call it the Black Gate.

If one had to ask "Why was the Nightfort built on this location, which is oddly somewhat off-center along the length of the Wall, as the first castle of the Watch?" such a tree might provide an interesting answer.

What is unusual about the Nightfort's location?  East/West it is towards the western side of the Wall but it is in the center of Westeros. 

Every other weirwood face we see is crudely carved and doesn't move, while the Black Gate is described being a man who got older for a thousand years without dying, probably very intricate detail.  Other weirwoods do cry, but it is sap or maybe blood, not tears.  The Black Gate is something special. 

[GloubieBoulga]

So... last evening, I was thinking to the green-black wall of water (rain+sea) that make quite sink Tyrion's ship in ADWD and I was wondering what could concretly happen if the Wall was falling. Melting. A huge and cataclysmic flood/deluge. Could the water arrive to Winterfell and submerge it ? Could Jojen's green dream become concretly true (and not only metaphoric like it is with the Iron born) ? Could Winterfell have an end as a drowning place, after Summerhall was burnt ? When Catelyn, in AGOT, is climbing to the Eyrie and watching to the Giant's spears, and when she thinks that an avalanche could be catastrophic, could it be a foreshadowing for the fall of the Wall and the consequences ? 

All the "under the sea" could really have a litteral sense. And the "drowned God" could also be really drowned, after all. 

 

 

4 hours ago, ravenous reader said:

It rolls down Bran's face, which indicates that it's Bran's tear; Bran is crying symbolically, not necessarily the weirwood.  Also, the solitary tear on the cheek reminds me of the tattoo of the Volantis slaves -- indicating that Bran is a prostitute and/or soldier indentured from now on to some unknown and possibly nefarious power.

Wow... I like this ! 

Are the Nightwatcher kind of whores ? Wed by force to a Wall who is a sword and a snake/worm (both as phallic symbol) ? Where do whores go ? I just suspect we will discover that all the whore's stuff with Tyrion (and also others characters, but Tyrion as 3rd head of the dragon might be the essential point) has a great sense, also symbolic, in the whole story, far more than only sex and love stories. 

The tears of the whores makes me also think to the "maiden blood", and the weirwoods have usualy bloody tears. Why not also couldn't we link the tears to the "mother tears" : the bloody and salty tears when she loses a child, and also when she gives birth. Catelyn as Alyssa failed to cry and to fertilize the land. Cersei refuses to cry because she sees it as a weakness. Finally, could the Wall be a huge river of frozen tears ? A non-accomplished mourning, like the tears of Alyssa ? 

 

[LynnS]

I like the idea that the monstrous weirwood at Whitetree is literally plugged into the Wall and it's vast reservoir of ice magic by a sucker root from the tree and that greenseers are grafted into the trees. 

Quote

Basal shoots, root sprouts, adventitious shoots, water sprouts and suckers are various types of shoots which grow from a bud at the base of a tree or shrub or from adventitious buds in its roots. A plant that produces suckers (root sprouts) is referred to as surculose. Root suckers may emerge some distance from the originating plant, are considered a form of vegetative dispersal, and may originate a habitat patch where that tree is the dominant species. Suckers also may arise from the roots of trees that have been cut down.

I suspect the weirwood don't actually produce a seed nut but spread by their root system.   Suckers can also be grafted onto other trees and in sense the greenseers are attached in this way, to the roots of the tree.  When Bran first takes the weirwood paste he goes down into the roots of the tree and ends up at Winterfell:

Quote

A Dance with Dragons - Bran III

Eddard Stark lifted his head and looked long at the weirwood, frowning, but he did not speak. He cannot see me, Bran realized, despairing. He wanted to reach out and touch him, but all that he could do was watch and listen. I am in the tree. I am inside the heart tree, looking out of its red eyes, but the weirwood cannot talk, so I can't.

Eddard Stark resumed his prayer. Bran felt his eyes fill up with tears. But were they his own tears, or the weirwood's? If I cry, will the tree begin to weep?

 

The Black Gate is different because it is a ghostly face hung on the Wall rather than carved into that queer weirwood.  A greenseer can be anywhere physically and peer through any tree with a face.  The face of the Black Gate is a reflection on the ice glowing with moonlight.
 

Quote

A Dance with Dragons - Jon X

"Ghost is seldom far." The direwolf raised his head at the sound of his name. Jon scratched him behind the ears. "But now you must excuse me. Ghost, with me."

Carved from the base of the Wall and closed with heavy wooden doors, the ice cells ranged from small to smaller. Some were big enough to allow a man to pace, others so small that prisoners were forced to sit; the smallest were too cramped to allow even that.

Jon had given his chief captive the largest cell, a pail to shit in, enough furs to keep him from freezing, and a skin of wine. It took the guards some time to open his cell, as ice had formed inside the lock. Rusted hinges screamed like damned souls when Wick Whittlestick yanked the door wide enough for Jon to slip through. A faint fecal odor greeted him, though less overpowering than he'd expected. Even shit froze solid in such bitter cold. Jon Snow could see his own reflection dimly inside the icy walls.

 

The notion that a greenseer may be imprisoned in the ice may not be far off the mark. If the prisoner cries, does the Wall weep?

Quote

A Storm of Swords - Bran IV

But he was a broken boy with useless legs, so all he could do was watch from below as Meera went up in his stead.

She wasn't really climbing, the way he used to climb. She was only walking up some steps that the Night's Watch had hewn hundreds and thousands of years ago. He remembered Maester Luwin saying the Nightfort was the only castle where the steps had been cut from the ice of the Wall itself. Or maybe it had been Uncle Benjen. The newer castles had wooden steps, or stone ones, or long ramps of earth and gravel. Ice is too treacherous. It was his uncle who'd told him that. He said that the outer surface of the Wall wept icy tears sometimes, though the core inside stayed frozen hard as rock. The steps must have melted and refrozen a thousand times since the last black brothers left the castle, and every time they did they shrunk a little and got smoother and rounder and more treacherous.

 

The business of the hinges screaming like damned souls is interesting.  The screaming iron hinges motif occurs regularly throughout the story. The Wall is one of the hinges of the world. When the door is frozen shut over millennia, the hinge screams when it is forced open.  The screaming hinge first appears in relation to the Others in the Prologue of Game of Thrones:

Quote

A Game of Thrones - Prologue

The pale sword came shivering through the air.

Ser Waymar met it with steel. When the blades met, there was no ring of metal on metal; only a high, thin sound at the edge of hearing, like an animal screaming in pain. Royce checked a second blow, and a third, then fell back a step. Another flurry of blows, and he fell back again.

 

The icy sword and the beast screaming in pain both personifications of the Wall as the sword and the serpent.  The door is forced and the power of the Wall is accessible to the Other.

The screaming hinge is repeated frequently in Aeron Greyjoy's dreams of Euron and in Ned's dream of Lyanna.

Quote

A Game of Thrones - Eddard X

"And now it begins," said Ser Arthur Dayne, the Sword of the Morning. He unsheathed Dawn and held it with both hands. The blade was pale as milkglass, alive with light.

"No," Ned said with sadness in his voice. "Now it ends." As they came together in a rush of steel and shadow, he could hear Lyanna screaming. "Eddard!" she called. A storm of rose petals blew across a blood-streaked sky, as blue as the eyes of death.

 

The darker implication is that Euron molested his brother and that Lyanna was forced against her will as well.  That act of violation and the birth of Jon Snow triggers the storm of petals blue as the eyes of death and what will follow.

In Lyanna's case, Robert is the culprit. What began at the Tourney of Harrenhal and ended at the Tower of Joy, a product of his jealousy and lust, his need to possess Lyanna after Rhaegar's affront to his pride.  The blue eyes of death representing an extension of Robert's own blue-eye progeny.  Robert's obsession with Rhaegar raping Lyanna over and over, a projection of his own guilt.

Quote

A Game of Thrones - Eddard XIII

"Damn you, Robert," Ned said when they were alone. His leg was throbbing so badly he was almost blind with pain. Or perhaps it was grief that fogged his eyes. He lowered himself to the bed, beside his friend. "Why do you always have to be so headstrong?"

"Ah, fuck you, Ned," the king said hoarsely. "I killed the bastard, didn't I?" A lock of matted black hair fell across his eyes as he glared up at Ned. "Ought to do the same for you. Can't leave a man to hunt in peace. Ser Robar found me. Gregor's head. Ugly thought. Never told the Hound. Let Cersei surprise him." His laugh turned into a grunt as a spasm of pain hit him. "Gods have mercy," he muttered, swallowing his agony. "The girl. Daenerys. Only a child, you were right … that's why, the girl … the gods sent the boar … sent to punish me …" The king coughed, bringing up blood. "Wrong, it was wrong, I … only a girl … Varys, Littlefinger, even my brother … worthless … no one to tell me no but you, Ned … only you …" He lifted his hand, the gesture pained and feeble. "Paper and ink. There, on the table. Write what I tell you."

 

This death bed confession has nothing to do with Daenerys.  His punishment isn't for hating Danaerys; it's for violating Lyanna and for precipitating a war based on a lie.  The terrible truth that Ned learns from Lyanna on her deathbed.  The truth that Ned's ghost tells Bran that is more disturbing than any crow dream. 

Lyanna's ghost dressed in white covered in gore in Theon's dream; Lyanna weeping bloody tears.

Quote

A Game of Thrones - Eddard XIII

He was walking through the crypts beneath Winterfell, as he had walked a thousand times before. The Kings of Winter watched him pass with eyes of ice, and the direwolves at their feet turned their great stone heads and snarled. Last of all, he came to the tomb where his father slept, with Brandon and Lyanna beside him. "Promise me, Ned," Lyanna's statue whispered. She wore a garland of pale blue roses, and her eyes wept blood.

 

I suspect, Jon in turn will be the Horned Lord and the Storm Lord, symbolic of House Baratheon and ultimately the Snow-Storm, the rider of the Ice Dragon.

Quote

A Clash of Kings - Bran V

"Osha," Bran asked as they crossed the yard. "Do you know the way north? To the Wall and . . . and even past?"

"The way's easy. Look for the Ice Dragon, and chase the blue star in the rider's eye." She backed through a door and started up the winding steps.

 

Quote

A Game of Thrones - Jon V

"Not everyone," said Halder. "It's the builders for me. What use would rangers be if the Wall fell down?"

The order of builders provided the masons and carpenters to repair keeps and towers, the miners to dig tunnels and crush stone for roads and footpaths, the woodsmen to clear away new growth wherever the forest pressed too close to the Wall. Once, it was said, they had quarried immense blocks of ice from frozen lakes deep in the haunted forest, dragging them south on sledges so the Wall might be raised ever higher. Those days were centuries gone, however; now, it was all they could do to ride the Wall from Eastwatch to the Shadow Tower, watching for cracks or signs of melt and making what repairs they could.

 

 

 

     

 

 

[Black Crow]

11 hours ago, ravenous reader said:

...the 'salty secretion' of the Black Gate wasn't necessarily a tear...It could've been saliva (after all, Bran is taken into an oral cavity) or even amniotic fluid (it is rather vaginal/cervical-like; Bran is being born/reborn...or unborn...)

It rolls down Bran's face, which indicates that it's Bran's tear; Bran is crying symbolically, not necessarily the weirwood.  Also, the solitary tear on the cheek reminds me of the tattoo of the Volantis slaves -- indicating that Bran is a prostitute and/or soldier indentured from now on to some unknown and possibly nefarious power.

,,,and then it was Bran's turn. Hodor ducked, but not low enough. The door's upper lip brushed softly against the top of Bran's head, and a drop of water fell on him and ran slowly down his nose. It was strangely warm, and salty as a tear.

Saliva is possible, but of itself it tends to be sweet rather than salty, and in any case I still contend that in the context and positioning of the passage - the cliff-hanging climax of the chapter as Bran and the rest of the Scooby gang enter the magic otherlands - GRRM is indeed writing of a tear.

He's also being very explicit in describing something which isn't a weirwood and strangely warm water certainly isn't ice-melt.

[LynnS]

32 minutes ago, Black Crow said:

,,,and then it was Bran's turn. Hodor ducked, but not low enough. The door's upper lip brushed softly against the top of Bran's head, and a drop of water fell on him and ran slowly down his nose. It was strangely warm, and salty as a tear.

Saliva is possible, but of itself it tends to be sweet rather than salty, and in any case I still contend that in the context and positioning of the passage - the cliff-hanging climax of the chapter as Bran and the rest of the Scooby gang enter the magic otherlands - GRRM is indeed writing of a tear.

He's also being very explicit in describing something which isn't a weirwood and strangely warm water certainly isn't ice-melt.

Yes, I think there is too much of the faceless man imagery about the Black Gate to dismiss.  Coldhands extracting an oath from Sam for the 'life' he owes.   A grumkin by any other name according to Arya concerning the three wishes or three deaths that they grant.  Arya herself, know as Salty in one of her disguises.

The Whitetree weirwood is more likely associated with the cold gods:

Quote

 

A Clash of Kings - Jon III

"What gods?" Jon was remembering that they'd seen no boys in Craster's Keep, nor men either, save Craster himself.

"The cold gods," she said. "The ones in the night. The white shadows."

And suddenly Jon was back in the Lord Commander's Tower again. A severed hand was climbing his calf and when he pried it off with the point of his longsword, it lay writhing, fingers opening and closing. The dead man rose to his feet, blue eyes shining in that gashed and swollen face. Ropes of torn flesh hung from the great wound in his belly, yet there was no blood.

 

 

 

 

[Black Crow]

1 hour ago, LynnS said:

Yes, I think there is too much of the faceless man imagery about the Black Gate to dismiss.  Coldhands extracting an oath from Sam for the 'life' he owes.   A grumkin by any other name according to Arya concerning the three wishes or three deaths that they grant.  Arya herself, know as Salty in one of her disguises.

The Whitetree weirwood is more likely associated with the cold gods:

I wouldn't rule out a connection; quite the opposite given that the further we move down this particular rabbit hole the more connections are revealed.

I've suggested before, citing the many different faces in the weirwood grove near Castle Black that those faces reflect those sacrificed to the trees. I'm willing to believe that this may also be the case here, but with the all-important difference that while those faces appearing above ground are frozen [in the sense of petrified rather than chilled] and effectively "dead", an underground one in the damp and in the darkness may still be soft and "alive" - but certainly not carved.