Trying to Explain the Weird Rewind at the Bridge of Dream

[Pain killer Jane]

On 2/28/2017 at 1:16 PM, Lost Melnibonean said:

According to legend Garin a prince of the Rhoynish had led a huge army against the Valyrians at Chroyane but they defeated his army and captured him and hung him in a golden cage. He called on the great river to destroy them. The river rose and drowned the invaders. The legend suggested that the Valyrian corpses under the water cause the fog and that a reincarnated Garin leads the stone men as the Shrouded Lord. And Ysilla suggests that the Valyrian corpses walk among the stone men. The current Shrouded Lord was a corsair from the Basilisk Isles, whose native inhabitants have dark skin.

This is not what you asked but I always thought that Greyscale was a curse and a disease since we get conflicting origins. And we can't discount the magical origins of this disease since we have Lady Stoneheart doing a good impression of the Shrouded Lord. By making the curse into the disease, GRRM still adheres to his low High Fantasy elements. I also tend to think that Greyscale affects people that are "dragon-blooded". 

[Pain killer Jane]

22 hours ago, The Fattest Leech said:

I have no idea, so I am going to just speculate.

Memory, Sorrow, Thorn. A homage to a favorite author of his??? The Valyrian bones under the water remember (memory), as Tyrion does the dragon(s) reveal over the Sorrows waters, and then Tyrion has to always prick his finger to see if he has the curse (thorn). We did get Ser Patrek of King's Mountain.

• Definitely. I was a huge fan of Tad's MEMORY, SORROW, AND THORN -- in fact, I doubt I would ever have written my own series without the inspiration his provided. http://www.westeros.org/Citadel/SSM/Entry/970

Or, this is another one of GRRM's personal themes he uses across several of his earlier works. He does this in House of the Worm and it was also another creepy, eery scene.

Now I want to look into it more to see if there is something I am overlooking? I agree that this is under discussed.

Never read that. 

But I will say that the memory, sorrow, thorn remind me of Reyne-Tarbeck ending where Tywin diverted the river and drowned them. The Reynes of Castamere weep (sorrow) over their halls (memory) because their claws (thorns) were not as sharp as Tywin's. 

And Tywin's influence did create a Shrouded Lady.

[The Fattest Leech]

2 minutes ago, Pain killer Jane said:

Never read that. 

But I will say that the memory, sorrow, thorn remind me of Reyne-Tarbeck ending where Tywin diverted the river and drowned them. The Reynes of Castamere weep (sorrow) over their halls (memory) because their claws (thorns) were not as sharp as Tywin's. 

And Tywin's influence did create a Shrouded Lady.

More of this blurry timeline stuff of history repeating. Water is such a strong theme in the books. I always knew it was on some level, but over the last year or so of closer analyses and reads, that stuff is everywhere!

So, will Tyrion have a chance to undo the tyranny of Tywin? Maybe?

[Pain killer Jane]

8 minutes ago, The Fattest Leech said:

More of this blurry timeline stuff of history repeating. Water is such a strong theme in the books. I always knew it was on some level, but over the last year or so of closer analyses and reads, that stuff is everywhere!

So, will Tyrion have a chance to undo the tyranny of Tywin? Maybe?

Water in our own world plays by its own rules. I mean it tries to roll itself into a ball because the molecules like each other and then since it likes other molecules so much it crawls up the sides of glass. 

Well Tyrion was a self fulfilling prophecy for Tywin as his doom. I tend to think Cersei is the one that will undo Tywin's tyranny just because his 'karma' is reverberating back onto her. 

Edit: But along those lines if Cersei and Tyrion aren't the ones to undo Tywin, I would hope Jaime on his path of redemption would do so. 

[The Fattest Leech]

Just now, Pain killer Jane said:

Water in our own world plays by its own rules. I mean it tries to roll itself into a ball because the molecules like each other and then since it likes other molecules so much it crawls up the sides of glass. 

Well Tyrion was a self fulfilling prophecy for Tywin as his doom. I tend to think Cersei is the one that will undo Tywin's tyranny just because his 'karma' is reverberating back onto her. 

Do you think any of Tywin's three children are the Mad King's? Everytime I am set on one theory, the other ones rears it's chimera head and makes me question things.

[Pain killer Jane]

14 minutes ago, The Fattest Leech said:

Do you think any of Tywin's three children are the Mad King's? Everytime I am set on one theory, the other ones rears it's chimera head and makes me question things.

I'm relatively sure Aerys is Tyrion's sire but the other two I am not sure. I am on the fence. For story purposes, since I am petty, it would be extremely gratifying if all three weren't Tywin's children and it would fit with the cuckoo theme we have in the story. A dragon cuckooing a lion and then those lion/dragons cuckooing a stag who has dragon-blood to begin with. 

Edit: a damn circle jerk of incest and cheating. 

Edit: but at the same time it is extremely gratifying accepting that Cersei and Jaime are Tywin's children since they did a phenomenal job fucking up House Lannister. 

[The Fattest Leech]

Just now, Pain killer Jane said:

I'm relatively sure Aerys is Tyrion's sire but the other two I am not sure. I am on the fence. For story purposes, since I am petty, it would be extremely gratifying if all three weren't Tywin's children and it would fit with the cuckoo theme we have in the story. A dragon cuckooing a lion and then those lion/dragons cuckooing a stag who has dragon-blood to begin with. 

That is hilarious

[Pain killer Jane]

1 minute ago, The Fattest Leech said:

That is hilarious

 

[Pain killer Jane]

21 hours ago, Walda said:

So maybe the parallels between the Trident and the Rhoyne are only the attacks of my own guilty conscience.

There are parallels to the Rhoyne and the Trident. Catelyn Tully turns into Lady Stoneheart (the Shrouded Lady) in the Trident with the Fire kiss assisting. Prince Garin being hung in the cage, probably drowned as well since he couldn't escape that cage and if he is the Shrouded Lord then he probably became that in the Rhoyne. 

 

[Unchained]

1 hour ago, Pain killer Jane said:

This is not what you asked but I always thought that Greyscale was a curse and a disease since we get conflicting origins. And we can't discount the magical origins of this disease since we have Lady Stoneheart doing a good impression of the Shrouded Lord. By making the curse into the disease, GRRM still adheres to his low High Fantasy elements. I also tend to think that Greyscale affects people that are "dragon-blooded". 

I am not sure if it only affects dragon-blooded people, but that is interesting.  However, I am sure it is much more symbolically important when it is one.  Dragon people entering stone is an important theme I do not yet understand.  A few examples of dragon people becoming stone in addition to what Garin did to the Valyrians would be Dany and Viserys sailing to dragonstone, them walking under an arch of stone limbs and leaves to enter Drogo's manse, the doom of Valyria (which I imagine turned people to stone like at Pompeii), and the ending of that Kit Harrington Pompeii movie (which my wife keeps watching for some reason, so many mysteries).  Dragons 'wake from stone', so maybe they have to be put in there as a first step.  @ravenous reader told me about me interesting liquid to stone alchemical transformations, and a lot of these fit that idea.          

 

The idea/discovery that greenseers in their weirwood thrones are like birds in a cage that both traps and sets them free, makes me think of Garin in a cage calling on the elements of nature to smite his enemies as a sort of vengeful watery greenseer.  I could see him as having the ability to listen to what Tyrion was saying and turning the river around.  I see the whole thing as an allegory for greenseers having the ability to turn back time, or alternatively, he, or his apprentice, may have actually done that here.  

 

By the way I tried to read about the hologram thing you have been talking about.  I was a physics major (sort of) and it just made my brain hurt, can you explain it to me without any quantum gravity?  Are you aware of any good science themed theories out there already?  I think of the pattern of decent into chaos and reorganization under a strong king is an entropy theme.  I also have some ideas about a lot of stuff in the story being about enlightenment thinkers I want to write about eventually.         

[Walda]

19 hours ago, Seams said:

I would say that the Old Man of the River and the Crab King conflict could refer to Tyrion and Ser Alliser Thorne.

Yes, but more than this. Don't forget, for example, that the crabs almost choked Lord Commander Mormont.

Searching for 'crab' and 'turtle', I notice that, with one or two exceptions, turtles nearly always appear in crab references, and while Tyrion is a magnet for both, and a certain group of Black Brothers, including Ser Alliser also, they are not the only ones.

But I'll start with crabs, and with Tyrion. (Incidentally, if anyone knows a keyboard shortcut for quotes, it would be most appreciated. Sorry not to reference chapters here, I might come back and do it when I have more time)

When Tyrion bribes Mord to carry his message to Lysa:

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“Gold,” he repeated, scrambling backward like a crab

On coming to Kings Landing:

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The first thing he had done after taking up residence in the Tower of the Hand was inquire after the finest cook in the city and take her into his service. This evening they had supped on oxtail soup, summer greens tossed with pecans, grapes, red fennel, and crumbled cheese, hot crab pie, spiced squash, and quails drowned in butter. Each dish had come with its own wine. Lord Janos allowed that he had never eaten half so well.

And of course, after this meal, Lord Janos is shipped off the Wall, along with those of his Goldcloaks he recommended (not including Aller Deem)

While surveying the Mud Gate he sees:

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Those who had coin came to the riverfront each morning and each evening, in hopes of bringing home an eel or a pot of red crabs

and dashes their hopes by destroying their markets.

During the Battle of Blackwater:

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A spearman wearing the red crab badge of House Celtigar drove the point of his weapon up through the chest of Balon Swann’s horse before he could dismount, spilling the knight from the saddle. Tyrion hacked at the man’s head as he flashed by, and by then it was too late to rein up. His stallion leapt from the end of the quay and over a splintered gunwale, landing with a splash and a scream in ankle-deep water. Tyrion’s axe went spinning, followed by Tyrion himself, and the deck rose up to give him a wet smack.

At the Purple Wedding

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A troupe of Pentoshi tumblers performed... Their feats were accompanied by crabs boiled in fiery eastern spices

In Pentos, the crab references become King references

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"I kill kings, hadn’t you heard?” Tyrion smiled evilly over his wine cup. “I want no royal leavings.”
“As you wish. Let us eat.” Illyrio clapped his hands together, and serving men came running.
They began with a broth of crab and monkfish, and cold egg lime soup as well.

And he notices:

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The roof the boy was standing on turned out to be the cabin of the Shy Maid, an old ramshackle single-masted poleboat. She had a broad beam and a shallow draft, ideal for making her way up the smallest of streams and crabwalking over sandbars.

With Davos, crabs are more about religion than royalty. They crop up a lot when he is in prison, but then, he is imprisoned a lot:

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His island was no more than a barren spire jutting up out of the immensity of Blackwater Bay. When the tide was low, he could sometimes find tiny crabs along the stony strand where he had washed ashore after the battle. They nipped his fingers painfully before he smashed them apart on the rocks to suck the meat from their claws and the guts from their shells...

I am a hollow shell, the crab’s died, there’s nothing left inside. Don’t they know that?...

Crawl inside your cave, Davos. Crawl inside and shrink up small and the ship will go away, and no one will trouble you ever again. Sleep on your stone pillow, and let the gulls peck out your eyes while the crabs feast on your flesh. You’ve feasted on enough of them, you owe them. Hide, smuggler. Hide, and be quiet, and die.

 

Then he feels for his fingerbones, "the fire took my luck as well as my sons". He prays to the Mother for mercy, and hears her reply “You called the fire,” she whispered, her voice as faint as the sound of waves in a seashell, sad and soft. “You burned us … burned us … burrrrned usssssss.” and after some more maternal remonstrance, and a nod to the burnt old gods, he finds the strength to climb out of his cave and hail his rescue ship.

Defiant, after he attempts to assassinate Melisandre:

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I would sooner feed crabs than flames.

When he dines confidentally with Lord Godric of Sweetsister:

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The beer was brown, the bread black, the stew a creamy white...with clams and chunks of cod and crabmeat, swimming in a stock of heavy cream and butter...There’s three kinds of crabs in there. Red crabs and spider crabs and conquerors. I won’t eat spider crab, except in sister’s stew. Makes me feel half a cannibal.” His lordship gestured at the banner hanging above the cold black hearth. A spider crab was embroidered there, white on a grey-green field. “We heard tales that Stannis burned his Hand.”...“I did not burn,” he assured Lord Godric, “though Eastwatch almost froze me.”...“The Freys killed Lord Wyman’s son, we heard.”
“Aye,” Lord Godric said, “....There’s ships that go between the Sisters and White Harbor all the time. We sell them crabs and fish and goat cheese, they sell us wood and wool and hides.

Lord Manderley's use of crabs is noted by Davos:

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As they approached the dais, Davos trod on painted crabs and clams and starfish

[And later, in the Wolf Den]The food had come as a surprise as well. In place of gruel and stale bread and rotten meat, the usual dungeon fare, his keepers brought him fresh-caught fish, bread still warm from the oven, spiced mutton, turnips, carrots, even crabs.

 

Davos is not the only one to notice Lord Manderley's crabs. Bran was impressed by them:

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Lord Wyman had brought twenty casks of fish from White Harbor packed in salt and seaweed; whitefish and winkles, crabs and mussels, clams, herring, cod, salmon, lobster and lampreys.

And, when thinking of Osha:

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He pictured her safe in White Harbor with Rickon and Shaggydog, eating eels and fish and hot crab pie with fat Lord Manderly.

Ramsey seems to have held similar hopes, from Theon's overhearings:

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Roose Bolton shrugged. “Lord Wyman’s litter moves at a snail’s pace …
“Lord Pig must have brought half the food in White Harbor with him.”
“Forty wayns full of foodstuffs. Casks of wine and hippocras, barrels of fresh-caught lampreys, a herd of goats, a hundred pigs, crates of crabs and oysters, a monstrous codfish … Lord Wyman likes to eat. You may have noticed.”
“What I noticed was that he brought no hostages.”

Theon also helps us associate crabs with the Myrham:

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Father says my peppercrab stew is the best he’s ever tasted. You could find me a place in your kitchens and I could make you peppercrab stew.”

But he does have a crab reference that is uniquely his own:

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The missing toes on his left foot had left him with a crabbed, awkward gait, comical to look upon.

The Greyjoys mention crabs frequently. Usually talking of people being eaten by them, especially but not exclusively Victarion's salt wife. Aeron makes an atypical observation:

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Great Wyk was the largest of the Iron Islands, so vast that some of its lords had holdings that did not front upon the holy sea. Gorold Goodbrother was one such. His keep was in the Hardstone Hills, as far from the Drowned God’s realm as any place in the isles. Gorold’s folk toiled down in Gorold’s mines, in the stony dark beneath the earth. Some lived and died without setting eyes upon salt water. Small wonder that such folk are crabbed and queer.

And it isn't the first crab reference associated with caves and tunnels and subterranean places.

Euron mocks the prayers of those he predates on:

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protect me! Protect me from mine enemies, protect me from the darkness, protect me from the crabs inside my belly

when he claims the Seastone chair. Hoster Tully knows this problem. He tells Catelyn:

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“The crabs are in my belly … pinching, always pinching. Day and night. They have fierce claws, the crabs."

and the Captain of the Myaham uses Euron's return to escape and tell Catelyn and Robb:

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old King Balon was crossing one of them bridges when the wind got hold of it and just tore the thing to pieces. He washed up two days later, all bloated and broken. Crabs ate his eyes, I hear.”
The Greatjon laughed. “King crabs, I hope, to sup upon such royal jelly, eh?”
The captain bobbed his head. “Aye, but that’s not all of it, no!” He leaned forward. “The brother’s back.”

Sansa's crab references also have a regal theme:

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If I am ever a queen, I’ll make them love me.
Crabclaw pies followed the salad.

And that course of the feast during the Battle of Blackwater is not unlike the Pentoshi Tumbler course of the Purple Wedding...crab followed by trenchers of mutton. I wonder if they came from the Sisters, seeing as the fishmarket at the Mud gate is otherwise occupied.

Sansa also makes careful note of the captives brouth before the king after the battle:

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There were great lords and noble knights in that company too: sour old Lord Celtigar, the Red Crab; Ser Bonifer the Good; Lord Estermont, more ancient even than Celtigar; ... hundreds of others.
Those who had changed their allegiance during the battle needed only to swear fealty to Joffrey, but the ones who had fought for Stannis until the bitter end were compelled to speak.

By their precedence, and the later fate of Ser Bonifer, I gather Lord Celtigar (the red crab) and Lord Estermont (the green sea turtle) had changed their allegiance during the battle.

Jon, like Sansa, pays attention to sigils:

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Hundreds of knights meant hundreds of shields....crabs and krakens, ... turtles...and a hundred other heraldic charges had adorned the Shieldhall walls,

While the stewards prepare to knife him. In the Frostfangs before he 'steals' Ygritte,

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In places Jon had to put his back to the cold stone and shuffle along sideways like a crab, inch by inch.

and in the battle against the Thenns at castle black,

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He had taken up a longbow himself, and his fingers felt crabbed and stiff, half-frozen.

Before beheading Janos Slynt, he gets a good look at his mutinous fellows

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Jon found Slynt breaking his fast in the common room. Ser Alliser Thorne was with him, and several of their cronies. They were laughing about something when Jon came down the steps with Iron Emmett and Dolorous Edd, and behind them Mully, Horse, Red Jack Crabb, Rusty Flowers, and Owen the Oaf.

I'm guessing these men have no love of wildlings, and are all Dragon men beneath their superficial loyalty to rank and patronage.

Patchface tries to warn him:

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“Under the sea the mermen feast on starfish soup, and all the serving men are crabs,”

But he can dream up his own uneasy prophecies:

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Eastwatch reported savage storms upon the narrow sea. I meant to keep them safe. Did I feed them to the crabs instead? Last night he had dreamed of Sam drowning, of Ygritte dying with his arrow in her (it had not been his arrow, but in his dreams it always was), of Gilly weeping tears of blood.

Sam, however, is alive and able to have crab references of his own:

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As Blackbird rounded the south coast of Skagos, they spotted the wreckage of a galley on the rocks. Some of her crew had washed up on the shore, and the rooks and crabs had gathered to pay them homage.

That galley being [ETA: actually, I'm not absolutely sure what the galley is, although Stannis's war galley Old Mother’s Son or Oledo(ADwD, Ch.09 Davos I) would be my best guess, and Elephant, Lysene companion of the Goodheart (ADwD, Ch.45 The Blind Girl) second best guess.]

When he gets to Braavos, Sam's crab observation is about the geography and layout of the city.

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To the north was the Purple Harbor, where Braavosi traders tied up beneath the domes and towers of the Sealord’s Palace. To the west lay the Ragman’s Harbor, crowded with ships from the other Free Cities, from Westeros and Ibben and the fabled, far-off lands of the east. And everywhere else were little piers and ferry berths and old grey wharves where shrimpers and crabbers and fisherfolk moored after working the mudflats and river mouths.

Arya's crab references are also mostly about the layout of the town and its waters, although there is one that relates to the Night's Watch:

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Dareon went on. Cat’s empty barrow clattered over the cobblestones, making its own sort of rattling music. “Yesterday I ate herring with the whores, but within the year I’ll be having emperor crab with courtesans.”

I'm inclined to believe she fed him to the eels rather than the crabs, but when her penance for that is over:

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Umma served salt-crusted crabs for supper. When her cup was presented to her, the blind girl wrinkled her nose and drank it down in three long gulps. Then she gasped and dropped the cup. Her tongue was on fire, and when she gulped a cup of wine the flames spread down her throat and up her nose.

So maybe it isn't always a choice between crabs and fire.

Brienne's crab references are intimately connected to the social and physical geography of Crackclaw point and the mouth of the Trident, but as I'm ignoring the other post that is about these for the second day in a row, I'm not going into it in this one.

When the Cinnamon Wind is almost at Oldtown, the captain of the Huntress tells Sam of the depredations of the Ironborn:

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Hundreds of their ships afflict us now, sailing out of the Shield Islands and some of the rocks around the Arbor. They have taken Stonecrab Cay, the Isle of Pigs, and the Mermaid’s Palace, and there are other nests on Horseshoe Rock and Bastard’s Cradle.

Cersei has a single distinctly unqueenly crab reference, while she does her walk of shame:

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shoving her way past the line of Poor Fellows, crouching as she scrambled crab-legged up the hill.

The reference in Arianne's point of view, where Garin of the Greenblood explains the enmity between the Old Man of the River and the Crab King, could count as a queenly reference, as he is explaining to the newly crowned Myrcella.

Dany also has a single crab reference, part of an inane internal dialogue she has with herself on the Dothraki sea:

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“I am lost at sea,” she said as she limped along beside her meandering rivulet, “so perhaps I’ll find some crabs, or a nice fat fish.”

Although there seems to be a parallel to this in Jaime's single turtle reference:

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A moonless night, bored guards, a black fish in a black river floating quietly downstream. If Ruttiger or Yew or any of their men heard a splash, they would put it down to a turtle or a trout.

Tullys were once as staunch supporters of the Dragonlords as Crabbs, until Hoster had a bellyful of them. Blackfish never agreed with Hoster, although Dany's is a fat fish, so maybe she gets Edmure as an ally.

There are far fewer turtle references, and they are usually part of a crab reference.  Although the first turtle reference comes long before the first crab reference:

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Prince Tommen was rolling in the dust, trying to get up and failing. All the padding made him look like a turtle on its back. Bran was standing over him with upraised wooden sword, ready to whack him again once he regained his feet.

Dany has more to do with turtles than crabs. She destroys her three ships to make a turtle to sack Meereen, and before the sack began:

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The hours crept by on turtle feet.

Most of Jon's references to turtles are to Mance's less successful siege weapon:

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He wondered what the free folk would do about the dead mammoth in the path, but then he saw. The turtle was almost as wide as a longhall, so they simply pushed it over the carcass....“The turtle was stuffed full of rabbits! Look at them hop away!”

He and Sansa and Catelyn note the turtle of the Estermonts, in the shieldhall before he is stabbed, in the vanguard of Stannis's forces on the Blackwater, and among Renly's knights at Storm's End.

Sam explains the Estermont sigil to Gilly:

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The turtle is Estermont, the swordfish is Bar Emmon

Quentyn and Arya both note turtle and crab as part of the cuisine of Volantis and Braavos respectively, but it is Tyrion, his trip on the Shy Maid, from the Sorrows to Selhorys, that gets the lion's share of turtle references.

The actual turtles on the banks of the river have some resemblance to Dany's dragon eggs: 

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ridged and patterned shells were covered with whorls of gold and jade and cream. Some were so large they could have borne a man upon their backs.

Tyrion seems to find them threatening, kind of predatory, though sea turtles, big as they are, have no teeth, and eat seagrass and algae. Even if Duck calls the river turtles 'bone snappers' and Tyrion is cautious, and GRRM does his best to impress us with their size, it is as difficult to buy into the ferocity of a slow-moving toothless creature.

Also, who can fear Lord Estermont? At his most ferocious, he bows to Doran's wish and marrys a Santagar. His wife might be able to get up to something in his name, but he doesn't strike me as someone who might surprise us. He is no Lord Frey (for a start he is twenty years younger, and his wife ten years older than Frey's wife)

There are other Tyrion turtle references, apart from the ones associated with the Shy Maid. Tyrion plays cyvasse at the Painted Turtle,  he asks Moqorro if Selaesori Qhoran was a triach or a turtle, and in his first tilt with Penny, on the Selaesori Qhoran before the storm, he slid off Pretty Pig and

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flailed like a turtle on his back. 

Like a giant bonesnapper on his back, no doubt.

[Pain killer Jane]

2 hours ago, Unchained said:

I am not sure if it only affects dragon-blooded people, but that is interesting.  However, I am sure it is much more symbolically important when it is one.  Dragon people entering stone is an important theme I do not yet understand.  A few examples of dragon people becoming stone in addition to what Garin did to the Valyrians would be Dany and Viserys sailing to dragonstone, them walking under an arch of stone limbs and leaves to enter Drogo's manse, the doom of Valyria (which I imagine turned people to stone like at Pompeii), and the ending of that Kit Harrington Pompeii movie (which my wife keeps watching for some reason, so many mysteries).  Dragons 'wake from stone', so maybe they have to be put in there as a first step.

Have you gone through all of LmL's stuff. The dragons waking from stone is the whole dragons coming from the moon and the whole confluence of stones=swords=dragons=people. The turning dragons into a stone is the concept behind the gargoyles on Dragonstone. 

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"When a wolf descends upon your flocks, all you gain by killing him is a short respite, for other wolves will come," King Garth IX said famously. "If instead you feed the wolf and tame him and turn his pups into your guard dogs, they will protect the flocks when the pack comes ravening." King Gwayne V said it more succinctly. "

-tWoIaF

I have yet to watch the Kit Harrington Pompeii movie. But yes Pompeii is the most out front rl parallel for The Doom. 

But anyway my basis for the curse being a disease and only affecting 'dragon-blooded' people is rooted in this concept of making 'turn-cloaks' to protect. In my thinking its the function of a vaccine and how it is made using the disease it is protecting us from. 

2 hours ago, Unchained said:

The idea/discovery that greenseers in their weirwood thrones are like birds in a cage that both traps and sets them free, makes me think of Garin in a cage calling on the elements of nature to smite his enemies as a sort of vengeful watery greenseer.  I could see him as having the ability to listen to what Tyrion was saying and turning the river around.  I see the whole thing as an allegory for greenseers having the ability to turn back time, or alternatively, he, or his apprentice, may have actually done that here.  

I am not going to completely agree but I agree that there the theme of setting things balanced again on social-religious-political-magical-natural levels. If time was altered already perhaps it was a future greenseer clawing their way into a past person which would be the inverse of Orelle living his second life in his eagle and then clawing his way into Varamyr and if I remember the flow of time and Bran scene, there was also talk of the dead singer in the bird which BR tells Bran that she wouldn't hurt him but Varamyr says that Orelle was clawing his way into him and didn't know if his hatred of Jon was Orelle's of his own. 

The Garin, Garth, greenseers there is also the parallel of Prince Aemon being hung over a pit of vipers in a cage. I think that is interesting if you think of Garin in his golden cage watching the the Valyrians drown it would look like that pit of vipers underneath Aemon. 

2 hours ago, Unchained said:

By the way I tried to read about the hologram thing you have been talking about.  I was a physics major (sort of) and it just made my brain hurt, can you explain it to me without any quantum gravity?  Are you aware of any good science themed theories out there already?  I think of the pattern of decent into chaos and reorganization under a strong king is an entropy theme.  I also have some ideas about a lot of stuff in the story being about enlightenment thinkers I want to write about eventually.         

I am not really aware of any scientific threads for theories. I agree with you that it is an entropy theme. I noticed that as well. I have spotted the Golden Ratio (and the Fibonacci Number. I am still working it out but I think the chapters of the story operate on this number.) here and there and the meandering of rivers. I recently speculated that the immortality gained from the deal between the King of Bees and Ellyn-ever sweet could be propolis which bees have been known to use to make mummies. And on this vein of presevation of the dead combined with bringing them, I also recently expressed to Ravenous Reader that Arbor Gold since it is an alcohol and as its name suggests that it comes from trees, and the equation of 'Iron for Gold' being a direct reference to Fool's Gold (Iron Pyrite) then perhaps Arbor Gold is methanol, nicknamed Wood Alcohol which when metabolized turns into formaldehyde (another substance used to preserve dead bodies, and as Maester Aemon said the cold preserves.) Of course there are more references such as the amber trapping the Nightswatchmen fighting. 

Okay now for the Holographic principle, basically it is saying that our 3D universe (the one in which we live in) is projected from the 2D information at the edge of the event horizon of the black hole in the middle of our Milky Way (which is located at Sagittarius A, this is part of the reason that I believe that the NK/AA/? person who fucked Planetos was a hunter greenman). This happens because objects that fall into a black hole leave behind their information (imprint as it were) at the horizon of said black hole which then projects out like a wave function and then experiences wave function collapse (that means that our observation of a wave function makes it behave like one particle.......we don't see all the atoms that make us up be sure as hell can see the results of their interactions). Its why we see the universe expanding but also being swallowed by the black hole. (the source among others of the moon falling into the well and then coming back up) There is a lot I can say but that would derail the thread even more like how this principle breaks the Arrow of Time. 

edit: I also have the theory that the serpentine steps is related to the structure of DNA. 

[Makk]

Perhaps Tyrion made the shrouded lord laugh, and the boon he was granted made Connington contract greyscale. If Tyrion does end up on Danys side that could come in handy. There's some interesting stuff in this thread, things like this never really occured to me while reading the books, just put it down to the river turning them in a circle while they were arguing.

[Pain killer Jane]

1 hour ago, Walda said:

Most of Jon's references to turtles are to Mance's less successful siege weapon:

Turtles are usually symbols of immortality and rabbits are fertility symbols. The turtle being stuffed with rabbits is a reference to the cannibalism/destroying of fertility for the sake of power.

LmL considers the Old Man of the river to be a reference to the solar barque of Ra. I tend to think it is a reference to the World Turtle swimming through the Milky Way if we take The Rhoyne to be representative of it. 

[Lost Melnibonean]

6 hours ago, Unchained said:

I am not sure if it only affects dragon-blooded people, but that is interesting.  However, I am sure it is much more symbolically important when it is one.  Dragon people entering stone is an important theme I do not yet understand.  A few examples of dragon people becoming stone in addition to what Garin did to the Valyrians would be Dany and Viserys sailing to dragonstone, them walking under an arch of stone limbs and leaves to enter Drogo's manse, the doom of Valyria (which I imagine turned people to stone like at Pompeii), and the ending of that Kit Harrington Pompeii movie (which my wife keeps watching for some reason, so many mysteries).  Dragons 'wake from stone', so maybe they have to be put in there as a first step.  @ravenous reader told me about me interesting liquid to stone alchemical transformations, and a lot of these fit that idea.          

 

The idea/discovery that greenseers in their weirwood thrones are like birds in a cage that both traps and sets them free, makes me think of Garin in a cage calling on the elements of nature to smite his enemies as a sort of vengeful watery greenseer.  I could see him as having the ability to listen to what Tyrion was saying and turning the river around.  I see the whole thing as an allegory for greenseers having the ability to turn back time, or alternatively, he, or his apprentice, may have actually done that here.  

 

By the way I tried to read about the hologram thing you have been talking about.  I was a physics major (sort of) and it just made my brain hurt, can you explain it to me without any quantum gravity?  Are you aware of any good science themed theories out there already?  I think of the pattern of decent into chaos and reorganization under a strong king is an entropy theme.  I also have some ideas about a lot of stuff in the story being about enlightenment thinkers I want to write about eventually.         

God, that movie was awful. Can you imagine what Adabisi woulda done to Kit Harrington in Oz? 

[Seams]

11 hours ago, Unchained said:

Are you aware of any good science themed theories out there already?  I think of the pattern of decent into chaos and reorganization under a strong king is an entropy theme.  I also have some ideas about a lot of stuff in the story being about enlightenment thinkers I want to write about eventually.         

Have you encountered the miasma theory yet? I find it really persuasive and just fun to dig into and I have come across some details in re-reads that really seem to fit. There was follow-up discussion about it in this forum.

9 hours ago, Pain killer Jane said:

But anyway my basis for the curse being a disease and only affecting 'dragon-blooded' people is rooted in this concept of making 'turn-cloaks' to protect. In my thinking its the function of a vaccine and how it is made using the disease it is protecting us from.

This is fascinating! Is this a new idea, or have you written about it elsewhere in the forum? My obsession the last couple weeks is the obsidian cache that Jon Snow finds at the Fist of the First Men. GRRM uses some very precise language - to the point of being a little bit odd, which always piques my interest:

A length of frayed rope bound the bundle together. Jon unsheathed his dagger and cut it, groped for the edges of the cloth, and pulled. The bundle turned, and its contents spilled out onto the ground, glittering dark and bright. . . . Even before Jon stood and shook it out, he knew what he had: the black cloak of a Sworn Brother of the Night's Watch.

(ACoK, Jon IV)

In other words, GRRM went to the trouble of telling us that the cloak "turned" as it revealed the dragonglass. It's pretty clear that dragonglass is the antibody or the most effective agent for killing The Others, so the turncloak connection is a great insight into how these antibodies might be delivered or manufactured. Let me know if there's a place I can read more about your theory or if you post a thread about it.

[Pain killer Jane]

14 hours ago, Seams said:

Have you encountered the miasma theory yet? I find it really persuasive and just fun to dig into and I have come across some details in re-reads that really seem to fit. There was follow-up discussion about it in this forum.

This is fascinating! Is this a new idea, or have you written about it elsewhere in the forum? My obsession the last couple weeks is the obsidian cache that Jon Snow finds at the Fist of the First Men. GRRM uses some very precise language - to the point of being a little bit odd, which always piques my interest:

A length of frayed rope bound the bundle together. Jon unsheathed his dagger and cut it, groped for the edges of the cloth, and pulled. The bundle turned, and its contents spilled out onto the ground, glittering dark and bright. . . . Even before Jon stood and shook it out, he knew what he had: the black cloak of a Sworn Brother of the Night's Watch.

(ACoK, Jon IV)

In other words, GRRM went to the trouble of telling us that the cloak "turned" as it revealed the dragonglass. It's pretty clear that dragonglass is the antibody or the most effective agent for killing The Others, so the turncloak connection is a great insight into how these antibodies might be delivered or manufactured. Let me know if there's a place I can read more about your theory or it you post a thread about it.

Not really new. I have had some discussions with LmL and Ravenous. And yes that is an interesting find. I never thought of the dragon glass as such. My hypothesis is mostly geared for all the scarecrow people running around that through symbolism are functioning like gargoyles especially the Nightswatch standing at their wall. I also tend to think this turncloak idea applies to the Others as well. There is a scene where Asha sees the burned man being buried by snow. I figured that if you can go from being one cloak to another such as joining the kingsguard or the Nightswatch than why shouldn't you be considered a turncloak in the simplest understanding. And it is a source of guilt for Jon. I think his first thinking of himself as a bastard traitor is the decision of staying at the Watch versus riding out to help his family. But I digress, I also tend to think the Others are mimicking white blood cells if we want to take the stance that humanity is a virus. 

ETA: you are right Seams because how else did they get the fourteen flames (the producers of obsidian) to kill the fire Lords other than turn it against them.

[Walda]

11 hours ago, Seams said:

Have you encountered the miasma theory yet? I

Oh my. Thanks for this. One of the creepiest qualities of the vampires of Dracula was their ability to evaporate into a Cornwall fog, blow in through an upstairs window, or between the joins of a door, and rematerialise. And of course, as soon as I read of Hardhome I though of those

Quote

white, wet clouds, which swept by in ghostly fashion, so dank and damp and cold that it needed but little effort of imagination to think that the spirits of those lost at sea were touching their living brethren with the clammy hands of death (Bram Stoker, Dracula, MIna Harker's Journal, 5 October, 5pm)

They could also use this power to prevent their ship from leaving port until the count had finished his business on land. They also had the ability to 'come in on moonlight rays as elemental dust', to warg into any form, to see in the dark:

Quote

Ah, but hear me through. He can do all these things, yet he is not free. Nay; he is even more prisoner than the slave of the galley, than the madman in his cell. He cannot go where he lists; he who is not of nature has yet to obey some of nature's laws--why we know not. He may not enter anywhere at the first, unless there be some one of the household who bid him to come; though afterwards he can come as he please. His power ceases, as does that of all evil things, at the coming of the day. Only at certain times can he have limited freedom. If he be not at the place whither he is bound, he can only change himself at noon or at exact sunrise or sunset...

...It is said, too, that he can only pass running water at the slack or the flood of the tide. Then there are things which so afflict him that he has no power, as the garlic that we know of; and as for things sacred, as this symbol, my crucifix, that was amongst us even now when we resolve, to them he is nothing, but in their presence he take his place far off and silent with respect. There are others, too, which I shall tell you of, lest in our seeking we may need them. The branch of wild rose on his coffin keep him that he move not from it; a sacred bullet fired into the coffin kill him so that he be true dead; and as for the stake through him, we know already of its peace; or the cut-off head that giveth rest.

(Bram Stoker, Dracula, Mina Harker's Journal 30 September)

Like Stoker, GRRM has taken care to have a number of examples of this eeire property before The Winds of Winter blow the deathships down from Hardhome, and also dropped a number of clues as to the laws that check the powers of the undead.

It seems to me now that the Last Kiss of the Red God might be a way of inviting misty others to re-animate a corpse...and share the habitation of it, until it is killed again. In fact, I'm wondering if the Red God is really an enemy of the Others at all - in Westeros he seems to draw his strength from the power of the Seven and the Old Gods and the mortal, to grow stronger on the talismans that would otherwise be employed keeping Others at bay. And he manifests as a deadly shadow (possibly with the face of Stannis - although that could be Catelyn's imagination). 

There is a hint in the culture of the wildlings (ie. "Kissed by Fire" is a lucky sign) And if fire is not the enemy of the Others, what will Dragonfire do?

In Garin's case, the water wizards specifically cursed the dragonlords. @Pain killer Jane your theory that Greyscale (Which, oddly enough, the wildlings know about - wildling mothers being inclined to amputate or murder their children rather than attempt to cure it) only affects those with the blood of Old Valyria seems really plausible to me. We know Shireen has 'Kings blood', and it would be reasonable to assume that Serra, with her Valyrian looks, did too. Volantis would  have a fair amount of Dragonlord blood in its population, especially considering

Quote

the Black Wall that had been raised by the Valyrians when Volantis was no more than an outpost of their empire: a great oval of fused stone two hundred feet high and so thick that six four-horse chariots could race around its top abreast, as they did each year to celebrate the founding of the city. Outlanders, foreigners, and freedmen were not allowed inside the Black Wall save at the invitation of those who dwelt within, scions of the Old Blood who could trace their ancestry back to Valyria itself.

(ADwD, Ch.05 Tyrion II)

Fused stone, with no crack or cranny for the fog to seep in. A wall. Black stone,

It is of the same era (give or take a few thousand years) as Storms End, which withstood the wrath of the Storm Gods, the same Gods who dragged Steffon Baratheon and his turtle wife to their watery grave. Perhaps also of the same era as Moat Calin which did not withstand the wrath of the River Gods, and where the Ironborn who held it were slaughtered by foul miasmas.

The fused nature of the stone, and the lack of any mention of oilyness makes it more like Dragonstone, although, like the other fused-stone artifacts we know of (the Valyrian roads, the inner walls of Tyrosh, the fort at Naath), Dragonstone was built after, possibly long after, the Black Wall.

ETA: And now I'm seeing them everywhere

Quote

Theon,” a voice seemed to whisper.
His head snapped up. “Who said that?” All he could see were the trees and the fog that covered them. (ADwD, Ch.37The Prince of Winterfell)

 

[40 Thousand Skeletons]

We do have another example of teleportation in asoiaf when Bran teleports Ghost to give Jon a view of Mance's army. From Jon VII ACOK:

Don't be afraid, I like it in the dark. No one can see you, but you can see them. But first you have to open your eyes. See? Like this. And the tree reached down and touched him.

And suddenly he was back in the mountains, his paws sunk deep in a drift of snow as he stood upon the edge of a great precipice. Before him the Skirling Pass opened up into airy emptiness, and a long vee-shaped valley lay spread beneath him like a quilt, awash in all the colors of an autumn afternoon.

So I would ask, what do Bran and the Shrouded Lord have in common? I have no idea 

[ravenous reader]

27 minutes ago, 40 Thousand Skeletons said:

We do have another example of teleportation in asoiaf when Bran teleports Ghost to give Jon a view of Mance's army. From Jon VII ACOK:

Don't be afraid, I like it in the dark. No one can see you, but you can see them. But first you have to open your eyes. See? Like this. And the tree reached down and touched him.

And suddenly he was back in the mountains, his paws sunk deep in a drift of snow as he stood upon the edge of a great precipice. Before him the Skirling Pass opened up into airy emptiness, and a long vee-shaped valley lay spread beneath him like a quilt, awash in all the colors of an autumn afternoon.

So I would ask, what do Bran and the Shrouded Lord have in common? I have no idea 

Are you being facetious?!    I think it's obvious that both are greenseers.  Also, as I've identified previously, drowning is a metaphor for greenseeing.