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In a Grove of Ash (Azor Ahai Goes into the Weirwoodnet)


LmL

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16 hours ago, Darry Man said:

Kinda disappointed that LmL didn't bring up "Bull + Weir = Bulwer" when discussing ol' Black Jack, may the Father judge him justly.

 

Oh nice one! That slipped right by me! Fortunately I am not talking about minotaurs by a longshot, so there is still time for this excellent pun. I love it!

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15 hours ago, Jon Ice-Eyes said:

On the subject of lightning and trees, LmL, have you looked at some of the Western mystical stuff about the Tree of Life, the Flaming Sword, the Lightning Flash, and the Serpent? It all fits with the main thread topic, and probably dovetails with Yggdrasil et al nicely.

Can you be more specific? Western mystical stuff?

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2 hours ago, cgrav said:

Just read this last night. Gotta do some digesting before I have any new thoughts.

Good to you see you friend @cgrav

2 hours ago, cgrav said:

But, I did notice something cool about the Grove of Nine scene: it's like a prologue to the prologue, with the Night's Watchmen playing the role of the Others. They sneak up silently on a group of wildlings in a grove (complete with a small fire) and then "assimilate" them by force. That is, they gave them a manner of second life south of the Wall, which is the realm that represents life. It's just like how the Others give the undead a second life as zombies north of the Wall.

That's an interesting take; certainly the NW and Others are opposite but parallel brotherhoods of 'watchers,' so its not surprising to find these types of parallels. But I wonder what it means?

2 hours ago, cgrav said:

@LmL I'm also curious if you will be investigating the Ebony tree as a transformed counterpart to the Weirwood. Knowing what we know about "gates" to the underworld and non-linear time, I've been thinking about the vision of Rhaegar in the House of the Undying. 

Yeah... the black trees. We have ebony trees, Shade of the Evening trees, and Ironwood trees that all play into the symbol of the black tree. House Blackwood too. I can see they are like inverted weirs - everyone has noticed that - but I am not sure what to make of it beyond that. A tree struck by lightning ends up black, so it's almost like the weirs are the moon in the moment of its incineration, while the Warlock trees are the after, perhaps. My plan is to keep poking around until I feel like I have a handle on the black trees, right now it's still pretty murky. The undying seem to compare to Others, being blue shadows who have unnaturally extended lifespans. But beyond that... I'm open to suggestions. 

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1 hour ago, LmL said:

Can you be more specific? Western mystical stuff?

Yes! Sorry for the vagueness. I meant specifically the Tree of Life as used in occult Hermeticism. It's a particular take on the Kabbalah. Similar ideas have also filtered down to other occult streams, like Chaos Magic and even some versions of Wicca. As far as it links up with trees and magic and fiery swords, it seems potentially relevant. 

If The George has used it, it's probably a smaller part of his thinking, but might yield some interesting ideas. 

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47 minutes ago, LmL said:

Good to you see you friend @cgrav

That's an interesting take; certainly the NW and Others are opposite but parallel brotherhoods of 'watchers,' so its not surprising to find these types of parallels. But I wonder what it means?

Yeah... the black trees. We have ebony trees, Shade of the Evening trees, and Ironwood trees that all play into the symbol of the black tree. House Blackwood too. I can see they are like inverted weirs - everyone has noticed that - but I am not sure what to make of it beyond that. A tree struck by lightning ends up black, so it's almost like the weirs are the moon in the moment of its incineration, while the Warlock trees are the after, perhaps. My plan is to keep poking around until I feel like I have a handle on the black trees, right now it's still pretty murky. The undying seem to compare to Others, being blue shadows who have unnaturally extended lifespans. But beyond that... I'm open to suggestions. 

There's actually a thought by Jon as they approach the grove, opening a paragraph, "The others were good men too." In the scene referring only to brothers Jon doesn't know very well. But of course the wording is just too conspicuous to overlook.

 

The HotU scene almost seems like an inverse trip into the weirnet to me. Dany takes the "burnt" substance inside herself and then enters a structure that's bigger on the inside than outside. 

Most of the visions are symbolic, but the Rhaegar one specifically appears to be a literal scene from his life. There's all kinds of "Rhaegar lives" crackpottery, but given Dany's alchemical wedding, Rattleshirt's burning, the visions in the flames, and flaming Weirwood imagery, I wonder if Rhaegar (and more I'm sure) attempted to enter the weir-realm via his own pyre. What do you suppose are the chances that pyre contained Weirwood or one of its ashy symbols?

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1 hour ago, cgrav said:

There's actually a thought by Jon as they approach the grove, opening a paragraph, "The others were good men too." In the scene referring only to brothers Jon doesn't know very well. But of course the wording is just too conspicuous to overlook.

 

The HotU scene almost seems like an inverse trip into the weirnet to me. Dany takes the "burnt" substance inside herself and then enters a structure that's bigger on the inside than outside. 

Most of the visions are symbolic, but the Rhaegar one specifically appears to be a literal scene from his life. There's all kinds of "Rhaegar lives" crackpottery, but given Dany's alchemical wedding, Rattleshirt's burning, the visions in the flames, and flaming Weirwood imagery, I wonder if Rhaegar (and more I'm sure) attempted to enter the weir-realm via his own pyre. What do you suppose are the chances that pyre contained Weirwood or one of its ashy symbols?

Essentially, I would say the things you are seeing that look suggestive of Rhaegar wanting to or trying to enter the weirnet are really clues about AA doing so, with Rhaegar being a reflection of AA. We are told of 2 other dragon people going to the Isle of Faces, besides the theorized R + L secret wedding that may have happened there: Alyn of Hull, who is basically a Velaryion (meaning sea dragon / greenseer dragon symbolism), and Daemon Targaryen, who probably died crashing into the Gods Eye lake with the dragons and Aemond One Eye, but his body was never found and rumor has him living on the Isle of Faces. It doesn't matter what the truth of Daemon's life is - the point is we are getting repeated ideas about dragon folk entering the weirnet. 

As for that Jon chapter, there are actually suspicious uses of "others" as possible double entendre, not just that one. It runs through the whole chapter. Many of the wildlings are compared to Others. I went though that one a long time ago and took notes with the intention of coming back to it when I start in on the Others. Basically, they are like long lost brothers to the NW in some way, and there are a couple of ways that could be true revolving around the LH and NK and the potential overlap in their stories. 

To put it simply, I would say that it is becoming apparent that Azor Ahai and his people went into the weirwoods, and the Others were subsequently 'forced out' as some kind of reaction to AA going in. I suspect that AA became NK, lives inside the wwnet, and the Others are spawned from his life fires, which are, again, inside the net. So, NK exists in the books, but only as the minotaur inside the net, and to the extent that the Others seem to come from the ww trees in some sense, I think they are coming from the person inside the net. More nebulously, you could say they might be splinters of the collective "Old Gods" consciousness that escaped somehow. 

I also think we are looking at a fight that happened inside the wwnet. I am not sure about all the players and who did what, but I have found enough clues about a fight 'under the see' and inside the trees that I feel confident something like that happened. So it could be one person went into the net to trap the other person there, or something like that. @ravenous reader and I were talking about how some of these scenes that take place in a grove or inside a ww symbol show someone being trapped, while other ones show a rescue mission where they take someone out of the ww symbol. I suppose before you have a rescue mission, someone has to be trapped, so you begin to see that we have some kind of drama going on inside the net. I am pretty sure the "maiden locked in a tower" ideas relate to someone being trapped in the net. 

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1 hour ago, LmL said:

 

 Basically, they are like long lost brothers to the NW in some way, and there are a couple of ways that could be true revolving around the LH and NK and the potential overlap in their stories. 

To put it simply, I would say that it is becoming apparent that Azor Ahai and his people went into the weirwoods, and the Others were subsequently 'forced out' as some kind of reaction to AA going in.

It is really really conspicuous that the Others are referred to in the Prologue as "the Watchers", with the same term being in the NW vows. Like the NW are the Watchers on the Wall, while the rest are the Other Watchers. I'd say this all strongly corroborates your earlier hypothesis that the original NW were undead people like Coldhands.

I'm definitely behind the possibility that the cold/winter was displaced by the fire when AA entered the trees. Makes me wonder if the opposite could happen - a "cold"'person entering the fire and creating cold/frozen fire (or dragons?) by displacing the heat. 

The wights are an interesting part of this equation, too. Perhaps the real abomination wasn't just entering the weirnet, but figuring out how to go back inside a body after being "sacrificed" to the tree. Such would represent an undoing of physical death, which fits well into the Prometheus theme. I picture entering the weirnet as an attempt at eternal life: a dying greenseer slips into the tree and then their physical body is killed. Of course that would also be a prison if done unwillingly. They'd be stuck on the cold, dead side of the gate, until someone like AA forces the hinges to swing backwards.

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1 minute ago, cgrav said:

It is really really conspicuous that the Others are referred to in the Prologue as "the Watchers", with the same term being in the NW vows. Like the NW are the Watchers on the Wall, while the rest are the Other Watchers. I'd say this all strongly corroborates your earlier hypothesis that the original NW were undead people like Coldhands.

I'm definitely behind the possibility that the cold/winter was displaced by the fire when AA entered the trees. Makes me wonder if the opposite could happen - a "cold"'person entering the fire and creating cold/frozen fire (or dragons?) by displacing the heat. 

The wights are an interesting part of this equation, too. Perhaps the real abomination wasn't just entering the weirnet, but figuring out how to go back inside a body after being "sacrificed" to the tree. Such would represent an undoing of physical death, which fits well into the Prometheus theme. I picture entering the weirnet as an attempt at eternal life: a dying greenseer slips into the tree and then their physical body is killed. Of course that would also be a prison if done unwillingly. They'd be stuck on the cold, dead side of the gate, until someone like AA forces the hinges to swing backwards.

Right, so you see the basic elements of the 'story' we are working with. All the stuff about screaming hinges and doors and horn blowing ties to entering the wwnet, and of course 'entering the wwnet' is paralleled in the sky by comets and meteors entering moons.

There's no question that wighting of any kind is an abomination. But if my green zombie theory is at all close to the truth, then we still had to use an abomination to fight an abomination, and this seems to fit the themes of the story and of playing with the fire of the gods, the sword without a hilt. 

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Hi LmL - once again, thanks for a great podcast.

So I was intrigued by the ice symbolism of Qarth and decided to have a mooch: It's lengthy so TL;DR: Qarth is dripping in ice symbolism, but potentially a corrupted fiery ice?

As a colour symbolism girl, I was looking at the colours of "ice" and noticed the parallels to the warlocks - blue and white. Then I picked up the World book and read this:

Quote

As Westeros recovered from the Long Night, a new power was rising in Essos. The vast continent, stretching from the narrow sea to the fabled Jade Sea and faraway Ulthos, seems to be the place where civilization as we know it developed. The first of these (not withstanding the dubious claims of Qarth, the YiTish legends of the Great Empire of the Dawn, and the difficulties of finding any truth in the tales of legendary Asshai) was rooted in Old Ghis: a city built upon slavery. 

So Qarth has been lumped together with the GEotD and its likely capital. Alarm bells ringing. Try looking in to it further and... hey, the World book doesn't really have much to say about Qarth, no fair - is George hiding something?

One of the few things it does have to say about anything Qartheen is the history of the pirate, Xandarro Xhore, the first pirate to start using the Basilisk Isles as a base of operations. He set up shop there around the same time as the Brotherhood of Bones - the milk men and the bone men (human avatars of weirwood bark, anyone?). You know the Basilisk Isles? The ones with ancient ruins of black stone indicating a Dawn Age civilisation, and the massive statue of a toad made of greasy black stone, and formerly home to blood sorcerors who mated beasts to women to “bring forth twisted half-human children”. Kinda reminds me of somewhere else....


The Qartheen more generally are called "Milk Men" by the Dothraki because they are so pale. The many associations of milk are: the Kingsguard armour (AGOT, Sansa II; which is also icy steel (ACOK, Sansa I) and a snow-white cloak) and horses (ACOK, Sansa I), Sam's moon face is curdled milk a lot, the Other's are called milky white (AGOT, Prologue; ASOS, Sam I), the icy Milkwater river that forms from a glacier north of the Wall, the Black Gate glows with milk and moonlight, and dying of the cold is like floating in a "sea of warm milk" (AGOT, Prologue). And that's not everything, and that's just in ASOIAF proper.

Speaking of dying of cold, we actually see one Ser Harwood Fell fall into the lake beneath Stannis' camp and contract hypothermia. 

Quote

On the fifth day of the storm, the baggage train crossed a rippling expanse of waist-high snowdrifts that concealed a frozen pond. When the hidden ice cracked beneath the weight of the wagons, three teamsters and four horses were swallowed up by the freezing water, along with two of the men who tried to rescue them. His knights pulled him out before he drowned, but not before his lips turned blue and his skin as pale as milk. Nothing they did could seem to warm him afterward. He shivered violently for hours, even when they cut him out of his sodden clothes, wrapped him in warm furs, and sat him by the fire. That same night he slipped into a feverish sleep. He never woke. (ADWD, The King's Prize)

A blue-lipped milk man? He sounds a helluva lot like a warlock! What do we know of House Fell? Well, one of the Fells was a member of the Kingsguard (so that ice symbolism) during the Dance who stayed loyal to Aegon II Targaryen. And Ser Thurgood Fell is one of the men who stayed loyal to Aerys during Robert's Rebellion, and he was slain by Robert himself at Summerhall: Thurgood's son promptly became one of Robert's men. They even have a crescent moon on their shield, above a field of spruce trees (according to semi-canon sources).


Another blue-lipped person comes in nightmare form to Daenerys:

Quote

Beneath her coverlets she tossed and turned, dreaming that Hizdahr was kissing her … but his lips were blue and bruised, and when he thrust himself inside her, his manhood was cold as ice.  (ADWD, Dany VII)

No Dany! Don't try to make babies with the avatars of ice! That can get you in a whole heap of trouble - haven't you heard the story of the 13th Lord Commander of the Night's Watch?!

Mentioning Hizdahr, his family wears indigo and lilac. It's the indigo I want to focus on. Why? Well, there's some pretty interesting uses of the word "indigo". The indigo emperors are a line of YiTish emperors who ruled from Yin. One of their notable emperors was Choq Choq, "the humpbacked, fifteenth and last of the indigo emperors, who kept a hundred wives and a thousand concubines and sired daughters beyond count but was never able to produce a son." (TWOIAF) The Indigo Star is a Qartheen ship that brings Dany (in Meereen) news of Astapor and an offer of marriage from the first King Cleon - this is the chapter that Dany decides she's going to rule Meereen. The heart of the Undying is described as indigo no fewer than 5 times in the space of a couple of pages, and the livery of their dwarf servants is purple and blue.

After that enormous diversion around Qarth, I will actually get to the shady trees. You mention the possibility that there is an association with lightning, given that they turn trees black. I did a bit of digging in to the colour symbolism of lightning, which I posted in Jon Ice-Eyes' thread about the duality of fire the other day. Most of the time, lightning is blue and white (so related to ice), but occasionally it is purple e.g. when Moqorro magics up a storm and the Dondarrion sigil. So, given the icy web of symbolism surrounding Qarth, lightning (which has icy colouring) striking the shade of the evening trees (with somewhat icy colouring) would be in keeping with this idea.

I say "somewhat icy colouring", because blue and white is the colour pairing most associated with ice. Blue and black is more associated with the Baratheons blue (ice) eyes and black hair - a potential reference to their Storm King heritage? - and the wights blue eyes and black hands - burned hands, not burning hands?

I find it really interesting that the traditional colour pairings are inverted with the weirwood trees and the shade of the evening trees. Traditionally, red is paired with black (a la the waves of night and moon blood, Drogon etc), and blue with white (for your traditional ice symbolism of the Others and the Wall). However, this gets swapped for the trees, for some reason. Are we looking at fire-transformed ice trees and ice-transformed fire trees?

So, way more questions than answers, but Qarth has a pretty cool net of icy symbolism woven in with some LB shizz so... looking forward to hearing your thoughts on iciness in a future podcast :)

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1 hour ago, Archmaester_Aemma said:

Hi LmL - once again, thanks for a great podcast.

So I was intrigued by the ice symbolism of Qarth and decided to have a mooch: It's lengthy so TL;DR: Qarth is dripping in ice symbolism, but potentially a corrupted fiery ice?

As a colour symbolism girl, I was looking at the colours of "ice" and noticed the parallels to the warlocks - blue and white. Then I picked up the World book and read this:

So Qarth has been lumped together with the GEotD and its likely capital. Alarm bells ringing. Try looking in to it further and... hey, the World book doesn't really have much to say about Qarth, no fair - is George hiding something?

One of the few things it does have to say about anything Qartheen is the history of the pirate, Xandarro Xhore, the first pirate to start using the Basilisk Isles as a base of operations. He set up shop there around the same time as the Brotherhood of Bones - the milk men and the bone men (human avatars of weirwood bark, anyone?). You know the Basilisk Isles? The ones with ancient ruins of black stone indicating a Dawn Age civilisation, and the massive statue of a toad made of greasy black stone, and formerly home to blood sorcerors who mated beasts to women to “bring forth twisted half-human children”. Kinda reminds me of somewhere else....


The Qartheen more generally are called "Milk Men" by the Dothraki because they are so pale. The many associations of milk are: the Kingsguard armour (AGOT, Sansa II; which is also icy steel (ACOK, Sansa I) and a snow-white cloak) and horses (ACOK, Sansa I), Sam's moon face is curdled milk a lot, the Other's are called milky white (AGOT, Prologue; ASOS, Sam I), the icy Milkwater river that forms from a glacier north of the Wall, the Black Gate glows with milk and moonlight, and dying of the cold is like floating in a "sea of warm milk" (AGOT, Prologue). And that's not everything, and that's just in ASOIAF proper.

Speaking of dying of cold, we actually see one Ser Harwood Fell fall into the lake beneath Stannis' camp and contract hypothermia. 

A blue-lipped milk man? He sounds a helluva lot like a warlock! What do we know of House Fell? Well, one of the Fells was a member of the Kingsguard (so that ice symbolism) during the Dance who stayed loyal to Aegon II Targaryen. And Ser Thurgood Fell is one of the men who stayed loyal to Aerys during Robert's Rebellion, and he was slain by Robert himself at Summerhall: Thurgood's son promptly became one of Robert's men. They even have a crescent moon on their shield, above a field of spruce trees (according to semi-canon sources).


Another blue-lipped person comes in nightmare form to Daenerys:

No Dany! Don't try to make babies with the avatars of ice! That can get you in a whole heap of trouble - haven't you heard the story of the 13th Lord Commander of the Night's Watch?!

Mentioning Hizdahr, his family wears indigo and lilac. It's the indigo I want to focus on. Why? Well, there's some pretty interesting uses of the word "indigo". The indigo emperors are a line of YiTish emperors who ruled from Yin. One of their notable emperors was Choq Choq, "the humpbacked, fifteenth and last of the indigo emperors, who kept a hundred wives and a thousand concubines and sired daughters beyond count but was never able to produce a son." (TWOIAF) The Indigo Star is a Qartheen ship that brings Dany (in Meereen) news of Astapor and an offer of marriage from the first King Cleon - this is the chapter that Dany decides she's going to rule Meereen. The heart of the Undying is described as indigo no fewer than 5 times in the space of a couple of pages, and the livery of their dwarf servants is purple and blue.

After that enormous diversion around Qarth, I will actually get to the shady trees. You mention the possibility that there is an association with lightning, given that they turn trees black. I did a bit of digging in to the colour symbolism of lightning, which I posted in Jon Ice-Eyes' thread about the duality of fire the other day. Most of the time, lightning is blue and white (so related to ice), but occasionally it is purple e.g. when Moqorro magics up a storm and the Dondarrion sigil. So, given the icy web of symbolism surrounding Qarth, lightning (which has icy colouring) striking the shade of the evening trees (with somewhat icy colouring) would be in keeping with this idea.

I say "somewhat icy colouring", because blue and white is the colour pairing most associated with ice. Blue and black is more associated with the Baratheons blue (ice) eyes and black hair - a potential reference to their Storm King heritage? - and the wights blue eyes and black hands - burned hands, not burning hands?

I find it really interesting that the traditional colour pairings are inverted with the weirwood trees and the shade of the evening trees. Traditionally, red is paired with black (a la the waves of night and moon blood, Drogon etc), and blue with white (for your traditional ice symbolism of the Others and the Wall). However, this gets swapped for the trees, for some reason. Are we looking at fire-transformed ice trees and ice-transformed fire trees?

So, way more questions than answers, but Qarth has a pretty cool net of icy symbolism woven in with some LB shizz so... looking forward to hearing your thoughts on iciness in a future podcast :)

A couple of thing about Qarth. It is bedazzled with the gems in the gem stone emperors sequence. I have sleeping child on me right now,but I can post a few for you later.

I never noticed Hizdars family colors before. It's hilariously consistent that Danny did. Her POV chapters are very consistent in identifying precise shades of purple. With one notable exceptions Targ eyes are described as people in other POV's, bur Danny describes her own eyes as violet and Viserys' eyes as lilac. She describes Rhaegar's eyes as indigo in her vision in The House of the Undying, but given the indigo heart I have never felt certain that this was their real color. (Cersie remembers Rhaegars eyes as purple.)

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The collar was set with an enchanted amethyst that Xaro swore would ward her against all poisons.

And the Tourmaline Brotherhood pressed on her a crown wrought in the shape of a three-headed dragon; the coils were yellow gold, the wings silver, the heads carved from jade, ivory, and onyx.

The armor had been made of silver and gold, the knights of jade and beryl and onyx and tourmaline, of amber and opal and amethyst, each as tall as her little finger. “A thousand lovely knights,” she said, “but not the sort my enemies need fear.

 

All from CoK Daenerys III

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57 minutes ago, Durran Durrandon said:

A couple of thing about Qarth. It is bedazzled with the gems in the gem stone emperors sequence. I have sleeping child on me right now,but I can post a few for you later.

I never noticed Hizdars family colors before. It's hilariously consistent that Danny did. Her POV chapters are very consistent in identifying precise shades of purple. With one notable exceptions Targ eyes are described as people in other POV's, bur Danny describes her own eyes as violet and Viserys' eyes as lilac. She describes Rhaegar's eyes as indigo in her vision in The House of the Undying, but given the indigo heart I have never felt certain that this was their real color. (Cersie remembers Rhaegars eyes as purple.)

also re: @Archmaester_Aemma: good stuff guys. Isn't there also a group of 13 exalted individuals who sit in old wooden thrones belonging to their ancestors? That's one place you might go to look for sea dragons, as Dany does (meaning Targ boats). 

Then we have the walls: grey, red, and black. I agree the milkmen thing sounds icy, and all the Warlock stuff too, but the walls and other things might not be. It's confusing, and there is (as Durran says) a lot of GEotD heritage clues lying around. One imagines some amount of that old world culture was preserved in Qarth. 

I guess what I am not sure of is Qarth itself. There are lots of identifiable symbols inside the city - too many, almost. Ghost grass is growing and glass candles are burning. Warlocks, the 13, Xaro Xoan Daxos. But what is the context? What does Qarth itself represent?

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45 minutes ago, Durran Durrandon said:

All from CoK Daenerys III

well that's a weird place to find "little finger"!

Anyway, I like how the hole HotU scene is a Prometheus story. The Undying were people who sought immortality by stealing the life force from Dany and her dragons. They wanted to steal her fire, both literally and figuratively, so she let them have it. Whoever tries to usurp the gods gets burnt, just like Robert the Usurper was full of firewine when he died. 

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2 hours ago, Archmaester_Aemma said:

I find it really interesting that the traditional colour pairings are inverted with the weirwood trees and the shade of the evening trees. Traditionally, red is paired with black (a la the waves of night and moon blood, Drogon etc), and blue with white (for your traditional ice symbolism of the Others and the Wall). However, this gets swapped for the trees, for some reason. Are we looking at fire-transformed ice trees and ice-transformed fire trees?

Yes, this is a great question. It's one of the many reasons color symbolism makes me greensick. :)

 

2 hours ago, Archmaester_Aemma said:

Speaking of dying of cold, we actually see one Ser Harwood Fell fall into the lake beneath Stannis' camp and contract hypothermia. 

Quote

On the fifth day of the storm, the baggage train crossed a rippling expanse of waist-high snowdrifts that concealed a frozen pond. When the hidden ice cracked beneath the weight of the wagons, three teamsters and four horses were swallowed up by the freezing water, along with two of the men who tried to rescue them. His knights pulled him out before he drowned, but not before his lips turned blue and his skin as pale as milk. Nothing they did could seem to warm him afterward. He shivered violently for hours, even when they cut him out of his sodden clothes, wrapped him in warm furs, and sat him by the fire. That same night he slipped into a feverish sleep. He never woke. (ADWD, The King's Prize)

A blue-lipped milk man? He sounds a helluva lot like a warlock! What do we know of House Fell? Well, one of the Fells was a member of the Kingsguard (so that ice symbolism) during the Dance who stayed loyal to Aegon II Targaryen. And Ser Thurgood Fell is one of the men who stayed loyal to Aerys during Robert's Rebellion, and he was slain by Robert himself at Summerhall: Thurgood's son promptly became one of Robert's men. They even have a crescent moon on their shield, above a field of spruce trees (according to semi-canon sources).

Ok, so I've noticed this scene too - the moon and tree sigil suggests the fallen Fell as a fallen moon meteor and a greenseer - his sigil is like Dunnk's, with the shooting star and tree. It's a diagram of the thunderbolt --> burning tree myth. But since he falls into the icy lake, this is about a greenseer turning into an Other (you will recall the Other's armor looks like the surface of an icy lake, and when Varamyr suffers true death, it's described as plunging through an icy lake). Bran's dreamers impaled on icy spires, that's the same idea I would think. Hypothermia works just as well as frostbite to symbolize Otherization. 

There's a bit more, but the point is, the story of Harwood Fell seems to be about ice moon stuff and Others - but as you say, the pale skin and blue lips sound like Warlock stuff. I would say that's more evidence that the Undying are indeed symbolizing the Others. 

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41 minutes ago, LmL said:

also re: @Archmaester_Aemma: good stuff guys. Isn't there also a group of 13 exalted individuals who sit in old wooden thrones belonging to their ancestors? That's one place you might go to look for sea dragons, as Dany does (meaning Targ boats). 

Then we have the walls: grey, red, and black. I agree the milkmen thing sounds icy, and all the Warlock stuff too, but the walls and other things might not be. It's confusing, and there is (as Durran says) a lot of GEotD heritage clues lying around. One imagines some amount of that old world culture was preserved in Qarth. 

I guess what I am not sure of is Qarth itself. There are lots of identifiable symbols inside the city - too many, almost. Ghost grass is growing and glass candles are burning. Warlocks, the 13, Xaro Xoan Daxos. But what is the context? What does Qarth itself represent?

It's the Pureborn she meets with on the giant thrones. I'm not sure if she ever meets with the Thirteen. But she meets with the Pureborn in the Hall of a Thousand Thrones, for what it is worth.

And you are right, there is so much in this chapter alone, and trying to make much of it is difficult. Daneerys II has choicer bits of less convoluted symbolism.

“A city, Khaleesi, ” they cried. “A city pale as the moon and lovely as a maid. An hour’s ride, no more.” . . . “This city is dead, Khaleesi. Nameless and godless we found it, the gates broken, only wind and flies moving through the streets.” Dead moon goddess, just sitting in the desert on the way to Qarth.

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30 minutes ago, Durran Durrandon said:

It's the Pureborn she meets with on the giant thrones. I'm not sure if she ever meets with the Thirteen. But she meets with the Pureborn in the Hall of a Thousand Thrones, for what it is worth.

Thank, I conflated the two. It's the Pureborn scene that is loaded with symbolism - the men in the wooden thrones of their ancestors look to be asleep, something like that. 

30 minutes ago, Durran Durrandon said:

And you are right, there is so much in this chapter alone, and trying to make much of it is difficult. Daneerys II has choicer bits of less convoluted symbolism.

“A city, Khaleesi, ” they cried. “A city pale as the moon and lovely as a maid. An hour’s ride, no more.” . . . “This city is dead, Khaleesi. Nameless and godless we found it, the gates broken, only wind and flies moving through the streets.” Dead moon goddess, just sitting in the desert on the way to Qarth.

Yeah, when you label a city a moon, that at least gives you a starting point. My best attempt at characterizing Qarth would be "GEotD time capsule." I think when Martin wrote AGOT, he may not have had the name "great empire of the dawn" in his head, but he did have the gemstone-eyed Valyrian looking people and rumors of people having tamed dragons in Asshai, so the "proto-Valyrians from Asshai" idea was def in mind when he wrote this, I would say. So, Qarth is like the last surviving time capsule of stuff from the old world, and thus everything from the Dawn Age is represented, perhaps - Others, greenseers, the 13, people who sail the jade see, and so on. 

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7 minutes ago, LmL said:
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“A city, Khaleesi, ” they cried. “A city pale as the moon and lovely as a maid. An hour’s ride, no more.” . . . “This city is dead, Khaleesi. Nameless and godless we found it, the gates broken, only wind and flies moving through the streets.” Dead moon goddess, just sitting in the desert on the way to Qarth.

Yeah, when you label a city a moon, that at least gives you a starting point. My best attempt at characterizing Qarth would be "GEotD time capsule." I think when Martin wrote AGOT, he may not have had the name "great empire of the dawn" in his head, but he did have the gemstone-eyed Valyrian looking people and rumors of people having tamed dragons in Asshai, so the "proto-Valyrians from Asshai" idea was def in mind when he wrote this, I would say. So, Qarth is like the last surviving time capsule of stuff from the old world, and thus everything from the Dawn Age is represented, perhaps - Others, greenseers, the 13, people who sail the jade see, and so on. 

The 'white city' is not Qarth -- it's Vaes Tolorro, where Dany ate the peach from the garden near the 'western wall' -- a Jerusalem and Garden of Eden reference.

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21 minutes ago, ravenous reader said:

The 'white city' is not Qarth -- it's Vaes Tolorro, where Dany ate the peach from the garden near the 'western wall' -- a Jerusalem and Garden of Eden reference.

Yeah, he wasn't saying it was (nor was I) - he was drawing a comparison to Vaes Tolorro as a place which has an obvious description (some kind of moon) vs Qarth, which seems a jumble of symbolism and is not characterized as a whole in such an obvious way.

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11 minutes ago, LmL said:

Yeah, he wasn't saying it was (nor was I) - he was drawing a comparison to Vaes Tolorro as a place which has an obvious description (some kind of moon) vs Qarth, which seems a jumble of symbolism and is not characterized as a whole in such an obvious way.

^^^^ this

32 minutes ago, ravenous reader said:

The 'white city' is not Qarth -- it's Vaes Tolorro, where Dany ate the peach from the garden near the 'western wall' -- a Jerusalem and Garden of Eden reference.

Yes, and it is  one of the cities of the greater Qartheen civilization that the Dothraki destroyed during the century of blood. I didn't take it as a Garden of Eden reference, but that is interesting. I rather saw her incubating her people in the moonshell egg. The Garden of Eden reference might work through. She has a very Luciferian moment, visualizing herself riding a dragon over the Seven Kingdoms  and reaching up to touch the comet, towards the middle of the chapter. Then the three wise men of the apocalypse, Pyrat, Quaith , and Xaro arrive looking for her at the end of the chapter.

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6 minutes ago, Durran Durrandon said:

^^^^ this

Yes, and it is  one of the cities of the greater Qartheen civilization that the Dothraki destroyed during the century of blood. I didn't take it as a Garden of Eden reference, but that is interesting. I rather saw her incubating her people in the moonshell egg. The Garden of Eden reference might work through. She has a very Luciferian moment, visualizing herself riding a dragon over the Seven Kingdoms  and reaching up to touch the comet, towards the middle of the chapter. Then the three wise men of the apocalypse, Pyrat, Quaith , and Xaro arrive looking for her at the end of the chapter.

Which is why Qarth kind of works well as "Dawn Age Planetos." The dragon incubate in the moon city, after following the comet there (so it's like the comet is striking the moon city). The magicians / wise men seek dragons and summon Dany and the dragons down to Qarth, where they meet the gamut of symbol representations, as we've said. 

What do you think?

A major symbol of Qarth that nobody has come up with a convincing explanation for are the three walls of the city. 

Quote

 

"Qarth is the greatest city that ever was or ever will be," Pyat Pree had told her, back amongst the bones of Vaes Tolorro. "It is the center of the world, the gate between north and south, the bridge between east and west, ancient beyond memory of man and so magnificent that Saathos the Wise put out his eyes after gazing upon Qarth for the first time, because he knew that all he saw thereafter should look squalid and ugly by comparison."

Dany took the warlock's words well salted, but the magnificence of the great city was not to be denied. Three thick walls encircled Qarth, elaborately carved. The outer was red sandstone, thirty feet high and decorated with animals: snakes slithering, kites flying, fish swimming, intermingled with wolves of the red waste and striped zorses and monstrous elephants. The middle wall, forty feet high, was grey granite alive with scenes of war: the clash of sword and shield and spear, arrows in flight, heroes at battle and babes being butchered, pyres of the dead. The innermost wall was fifty feet of black marble, with carvings that made Dany blush until she told herself that she was being a fool. She was no maid; if she could look on the grey wall's scenes of slaughter, why should she avert her eyes from the sight of men and women giving pleasure to one another?

The outer gates were banded with copper, the middle with iron; the innermost were studded with golden eyes. All opened at Dany's approach. As she rode her silver into the city, small children rushed out to scatter flowers in her path. They wore golden sandals and bright paint, no more.

 

 

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