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Holy Grails, Broken Vessles, and Wombs of Ice and Fire: Spitball and Tinfoil


hiemal

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The world ASoIaF is rich in a "mythic" history that reads close to Arthurian legend. In fact, I think a case could be made for two stages of Arthurian stories centered around early Age of Heroes being related to various local stories of heroes who later became Grail Knights (I'm thinking stuff like the Mabinogian in particular) when local mythologies began uniting around a unifying force and King Arthur and the Grail Quest or the Last Hero and the Battle for the Dawn.

The most obvious examples are Florain the Fool, our Percival, the perfect knight and perfect fool and I think the swords Dawn, Just Maid, Ice, and Lightbringer as possible Excalibur analogs and permutations. I'm here looking today looking for grails, though, the yin to all those stabby yangs.

Bring me your tinfoils and spitballs, your opinions and intuitions on the topic of Grails and the Eternal Feminine.

Some thoughts of my own:

1a. There is no Holy Grail in Westeros for the same reason there are no virgin births;  although women are seen as weaker and are routinely subjugated they are not viewed as being spiritually inferior or cursed. There is no need to "compensate" for this in order to produce a hero so the cycle we see in ASoIaF is one of broken vessels- women who die delivering the hero as opposed to miracle virgins. The structure of the Seven compared to the Holy Trinity, for example- the closest I can find to Eve and the Apple is the Crone letting Ravens into the world. There doesn't seem to be any Original Sin, so no redemption, so no Holy Grail.

1b. Also on the Seven, however, the Stranger is male and female- so maybe a sword could be a grail as well- and a sword made from a meteor would even better. So Dawn, Lightbringer, both, or Lightbringer becomes Dawn (if say the meteor was brought from Starfall to Essos to be worshiped and turned into Lightbringer and then redeemed by the LH during the Battle for the Dawn)...

2. Sticking to the idea of male/female mergers: The Grail is now a horn. The Horn of Winter and Dragonbinder, maybe?

3a. Night's Queen is the Grail/womb of Ice. The Pair Dadeni is the Cauldron of Rebirth that brings the dead placed into it back to life. If Night's King were a Stark perhaps he had Ice with him?

3b. Dany is the Grail/womb of Fire. Not much to say, really, beyond it makes sense to me. Dragons plant no trees but they don't die in childbirth.

That's all I've got. Bring me your Grail Knight stuff, too. Florian, Galladon, Last Hero, Symeon, come one come all!

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Maiden as Grail, instead, maybe? Cups and cauldrons seem to contain poison or bits of people more often than not.  Any pools, or pools in caves, featuring heavily? There's a fair bit of egg/moon imagery, that might be cornering the birth/rebirth aspect.

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3 hours ago, SeaWitch said:

Maiden as Grail, instead, maybe?

The Maiden would, I suspect, be an empty cup without parthenogenesis  I see her more as Lady of the Lake to Galladon's Arthur or Lancelot?

3 hours ago, SeaWitch said:

Cups and cauldrons seem to contain poison or bits of people more often than not.  Any pools, or pools in caves, featuring heavily? There's a fair bit of egg/moon imagery, that might be cornering the birth/rebirth aspect.

Pools, wells, and mirrors- I've been pondering them all but I'm still short on conclusions...

The pool in Winterfell's Godswood.

The Black Well at the Nightfort- which leads to another analog, the Black Gate, which was... masculated (?) with a male face.

The Maidenpool where Florian met Jonquil (any relation to the Maiden and Galladon- the world needs to know!).

Spoiler

The pool in the cave in the Rainwood in Arianne II, TWoW

The pool at the House of Black and White

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11 minutes ago, The Weirwoods Eyes said:

@hiemalSounds like good stuff to me. :)  I wrote a shit ton of stuff about Perfect Knights and Galahad figures last year. In relation to Brienne, Galadon of Morne and House Dayne.  Do you want me to repeat it here? or did you read it already? 

I would to love to see it (again? I'm not sure- Galladon/Galahad would certainly have drawn my eye if I'd noticed it, but I was still thinking Lancelot...).

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When Jaime and Brienne visit Maidenpool they find the pool itself befouled with dead bodies. A despoiled womb of death?

How does that contrast with the tranquil pool at the House of Black and White?

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Does anyone else think it might be important that the Seven are broken down in such a way that we have the "male" principle of justice operating indepentently of the "female" principle of wisdom (and wisdom rendered toothless without judgement). They aren't even "paired up", the Crone being paired with male industry and the Father with female labor.

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1 hour ago, The Weirwoods Eyes said:

 I wrote a shit ton of stuff about Perfect Knights and Galahad figures last year. In relation to Brienne, Galadon of Morne and House Dayne.  Do you want me to repeat it here? or did you read it already? 

I'd love to read it. I'm interested to find out about Brienne's Holy Grail. There's still that numb feeling, our female Percival might only find a very twisted version of the grail, such as the Kiss of Life. It would make her life longer and she would become a Holy Grail herself when she passes that kiss to someone else.

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1 hour ago, hiemal said:

Does anyone else think it might be important that the Seven are broken down in such a way that we have the "male" principle of justice operating indepentently of the "female" principle of wisdom (and wisdom rendered toothless without judgement). They aren't even "paired up", the Crone being paired with male industry and the Father with female labor.

I wrote in another thread how I think it's important in that it speaks directly to the culture. Or, rather, it reinforces the current cultural status quo regarding gender norms. The prompting was someone saying that Westeros is at least better than our world because of the lack of doctrine defining a woman's role. My argument was basically that they don't need a doctrine when they have 6 examples of culturally acceptable (and one unacceptable) archetypes.

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Au contraire, take a closer look at 6 of the 7 aspects of the Faith of the Seven. They represent not only a rigid social order but also define strict gender roles. Men get the active roles: the Father (judgement; justice), the Smith (creation), and the Warrior (fighting). Not only are women represented in passive roles, but their "aspects" represent the stages of their life: you're born a Maiden (young girls should stay virgins until marriage; obey your father), achieve your greatest status as a Mother (have babies/heirs for your husband), and when you're too old to do/be the other two you are the Crone (provide guidance and wisdom for others). Note men's aspects have nothing to do with their age at all. The Father is usually represented bearded, but that doesn't imply he's as old as a crone (i.e., Old Nan). All of the female aspects are in the service of others as well, while the male aspects don't necessarily have those connotations. Your mileage may vary on this last point, but the Stranger (mystery; death) is sometimes defined as both male and female (or neither)... implying that not being on one side of a (false) dichotomy is bad and scary. Women who don't follow these archetypes have a nice cold spot waiting for them in the Silent Sisters (of which there is no male equivalent)... and who are the Silent Sisters dedicated to? The Stranger (scary; bad).

Anyways, to circle back to the question asked, I think there's something to be said about how they divide up the 7. There is a clear line drawn between the three gendered aspects and looming in the middle is the Stranger.

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Brienne searching for Sansa is what I vaguely had in my head, with the Grail Maiden.  I'm still only two books in, and going mainly off this forum for beyond that.  But yeah, lots of swords, and Celtic myth imagery, the lack of cauldron/cup is quite odd.

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4 hours ago, Damon_Tor said:

A reference to drinking from cups from the House of the Undying. Seemed relevant.

Good find. I wonder if the blue heart is a kind of corrupted grail?

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4 hours ago, foxberlin said:

I'd love to read it. I'm interested to find out about Brienne's Holy Grail. There's still that numb feeling, our female Percival might only find a very twisted version of the grail, such as the Kiss of Life. It would make her life longer and she would become a Holy Grail herself when she passes that kiss to someone else.

Awesome! Lady Stoneheart as Fish(er) Queen! I love it.

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3 hours ago, Traverys said:

I wrote in another thread how I think it's important in that it speaks directly to the culture. Or, rather, it reinforces the current cultural status quo regarding gender norms. The prompting was someone saying that Westeros is at least better than our world because of the lack of doctrine defining a woman's role. My argument was basically that they don't need a doctrine when they have 6 examples of culturally acceptable (and one unacceptable) archetypes.

All of the female aspects are in the service of others as well, while the male aspects don't necessarily have those connotations.

Subjugated but not spiritually degraded. It's an interesting dynamic.

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3 hours ago, SeaWitch said:

Brienne searching for Sansa is what I vaguely had in my head, with the Grail Maiden.  I'm still only two books in, and going mainly off this forum for beyond that.  But yeah, lots of swords, and Celtic myth imagery, the lack of cauldron/cup is quite odd.

I can definitely see that. Fingers crossed our Perfect Fool/Perfect Knight candidate gets to the Maid while she still is one(more spiritually than physically).

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Triple goddess as stages of life/moon phases,  Father/Smith/Warrior is basically Odin/Thor/Tyr or Esus/Toutatis/Taranis. Representatives of the trifunctional hypothesis.  Sage, warrior, craftsman.

...I'm now going to go back and investigate three-fold deaths. Or has someone done this already?

it does feel like there should be a cauldron somewhere. The whole Formorian/Tuatha de Danaan aspect of Westerosi origins, one of the fertility guys should have been brewing mead or something.

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23 minutes ago, SeaWitch said:

Triple goddess as stages of life/moon phases,  Father/Smith/Warrior is basically Odin/Thor/Tyr or Esus/Toutatis/Taranis. Representatives of the trifunctional hypothesis.  Sage, warrior, craftsman.

...I'm now going to go back and investigate three-fold deaths. Or has someone done this already?

it does feel like there should be a cauldron somewhere. The whole Formorian/Tuatha de Danaan aspect of Westerosi origins, one of the fertility guys should have been brewing mead or something.

 

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A Clash of Kings - Daenerys IV

"One flute will serve only to unstop your ears and dissolve the caul from off your eyes, so that you may hear and see the truths that will be laid before you."

Dany raised the glass to her lips. The first sip tasted like ink and spoiled meat, foul, but when she swallowed it seemed to come to life within her. She could feel tendrils spreading through her chest, like fingers of fire coiling around her heart, and on her tongue was a taste like honey and anise and cream, like mother's milk and Drogo's seed, like red meat and hot blood and molten gold. It was all the tastes she had ever known, and none of them . . . and then the glass was empty.

"Now you may enter," said the warlock. Dany put the glass back on the servitor's tray, and went inside.

 

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A Dance with Dragons - Bran III

He ate.

It had a bitter taste, though not so bitter as acorn paste. The first spoonful was the hardest to get down. He almost retched it right back up. The second tasted better. The third was almost sweet. The rest he spooned up eagerly. Why had he thought that it was bitter? It tasted of honey, of new-fallen snow, of pepper and cinnamon and the last kiss his mother ever gave him. The empty bowl slipped from his fingers and clattered on the cavern floor. "I don't feel any different. What happens next?"

Leaf touched his hand. "The trees will teach you. The trees remember." He raised a hand, and the other singers began to move about the cavern, extinguishing the torches one by one. The darkness thickened and crept toward them.

A Storm of Swords - Bran I

"Then you teach me." Bran still feared the three-eyed crow who haunted his dreams sometimes, pecking endlessly at the skin between his eyes and telling him to fly. "You're a greenseer."

"No," said Jojen, "only a boy who dreams. The greenseers were more than that. They were wargs as well, as you are, and the greatest of them could wear the skins of any beast that flies or swims or crawls, and could look through the eyes of the weirwoods as well, and see the truth that lies beneath the world.

The 'cauldron of rebirth' is the weirwood.  The 'three-fold deaths' of the greenseer -- hanging on the tree, being pierced through by the tree, drowning in the 'green sea/see.'

 

6 hours ago, hiemal said:

When Jaime and Brienne visit Maidenpool they find the pool itself befouled with dead bodies. A despoiled womb of death?

How does that contrast with the tranquil pool at the House of Black and White?

I think it's the same thing symbolically -- think of it as a form of 'sisters' stew' containing dubious lumps of 'sea creatures' in its bottomless depths, occasionally bobbing up to reveal themselves!  Both corrupted, poisonous and the 'pale bodies' frequently emerging, even erupting, from these 'black bodies' of water more generally belies their apparent 'tranquility' (Osha, Dany, the pregnant woman in Bran's dream swearing bloody vengeance).  The 'black pool' is analogous to the 'shade of the evening' trees -- and both are connected to the weirwood, being its 'flipside'.  This is graphically demonstrated by the heart tree brooding over its reflection in the black pool, when it spies Bran. 

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A Clash of Kings - Bran II

Hodor knew Bran's favorite place, so he took him to the edge of the pool beneath the great spread of the heart tree, where Lord Eddard used to kneel to pray. Ripples were running across the surface of the water when they arrived, making the reflection of the weirwood shimmer and dance. There was no wind, though. For an instant Bran was baffled.

And then Osha exploded up out of the pool with a great splash, so sudden that even Summer leapt back, snarling. Hodor jumped away, wailing "Hodor, Hodor" in dismay until Bran patted his shoulder to soothe his fears. "How can you swim in there?" he asked Osha. "Isn't it cold?"

"As a babe I suckled on icicles, boy. I like the cold." Osha swam to the rocks and rose dripping. She was naked, her skin bumpy with gooseprickles. Summer crept close and sniffed at her. "I wanted to touch the bottom."

Summer sniffs at her, almost as if he's trying to differentiate whether she's alive or dead!

16 hours ago, hiemal said:

The world ASoIaF is rich in a "mythic" history that reads close to Arthurian legend. In fact, I think a case could be made for two stages of Arthurian stories centered around early Age of Heroes being related to various local stories of heroes who later became Grail Knights (I'm thinking stuff like the Mabinogian in particular) when local mythologies began uniting around a unifying force and King Arthur and the Grail Quest or the Last Hero and the Battle for the Dawn.

The most obvious examples are Florain the Fool, our Percival, the perfect knight and perfect fool and I think the swords Dawn, Just Maid, Ice, and Lightbringer as possible Excalibur analogs and permutations. I'm here looking today looking for grails, though, the yin to all those stabby yangs.

I think GRRM is deconstructing the notion of male as 'stabby' vs. female as 'non-stabby'.  Smashing this dichotomy, the 'female' is shown to be both 'grabby' and 'stabby', e.g. in Theon's 'vagina dentata' dream:

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A Clash of Kings - Theon V

All his dreams had been cold of late, and each more hideous than the one before....

...

The night before, it had been the miller's wife. Theon had forgotten her name, but he remembered her body, soft pillowy breasts and stretch marks on her belly, the way she clawed his back when he fucked her. Last night in his dream he had been in bed with her once again, but this time she had teeth above and below, and she tore out his throat even as she was gnawing off his manhood. It was madness. He'd seen her die too. Gelmarr had cut her down with one blow of his axe as she cried to Theon for mercy. Leave me, woman. It was him who killed you, not me. And he's dead as well. At least Gelmarr did not haunt Theon's sleep.

The dream had receded by the time Wex returned with the water. Theon washed the sweat and sleep from his body and took his own good time dressing. Asha had let him wait long enough; now it was her turn. He chose a satin tunic striped black and gold and a fine leather jerkin with silver studs . . . and only then remembered that his wretched sister put more stock in blades than beauty. Cursing, he tore off the clothes and dressed again, in felted black wool and ringmail. Around his waist he buckled sword and dagger, remembering the night she had humiliated him at his own father's table. Her sweet suckling babe, yes. Well, I have a knife too, and know how to use it.

Except, Theon loses his 'knife' (i.e. penis) while Asha keeps hers.

I think this dream and Theon's fate is an allegory for the 'marriage' to a weirwood, but I won't go into that in detail with respect to this dream specifically here, suffice to say that the ultimate grail in ASOIAF is the weirwood.

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Bring me your tinfoils and spitballs, your opinions and intuitions on the topic of Grails and the Eternal Feminine.

Some thoughts of my own:

1a. There is no Holy Grail in Westeros for the same reason there are no virgin births;  although women are seen as weaker and are routinely subjugated they are not viewed as being spiritually inferior or cursed. There is no need to "compensate" for this in order to produce a hero so the cycle we see in ASoIaF is one of broken vessels- women who die delivering the hero as opposed to miracle virgins. The structure of the Seven compared to the Holy Trinity, for example- the closest I can find to Eve and the Apple is the Crone letting Ravens into the world. There doesn't seem to be any Original Sin, so no redemption, so no Holy Grail.

I disagree with most of this :).  Firstly, I don't know about the Seven, but in the old gods mythos there's definitely a hint of original sin (although I agree this is not exclusively associated with a woman leading a man into temptation, but rather with a man who 'felt no fear' and jumped in of his own accord); or all the weirwoods would not be weeping blood in 'mute appeal', which is simultaneously an accusation recorded on their faces of something terrible which happened historically, a transgression for which humans (specifically I'd posit the 'naughty greenseers') are probably responsible.  

Secondly, there is a Holy Grail -- the Weirwood.  But you're right -- it's broken (probably broken in the moment of its activation by the original sin itself -- yes, a paradox, just the way GRRM prefers to roll).  Broken things don't necessarily rule out redemption -- 'there's a crack in everything; that's how the light gets in...'!   Thus, the weirwood embodies the healing-harming dualism.  Allow me to quote myself (from 'Bran's growing powers' re-read) :P:

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Note:  I've previously posted the following piece over on one of the other threads, but it's worth reproducing here -- because I find it central to thinking about Bran's mythic and moral destiny.

I like your delightful comparison with a bird cage! In addition, the wicker basket is basically a kind of nest, woven with plant stalks, branches, or shoots, in which an egg incubates, and after hatching a baby bird nestles. 

We can also identify a further layer of symbolic meaning here that is vaguely disturbing.  At first Hodor carries Bran in a basket which resembles a nest.  Then, with his developing powers, Bran by skinchanging Hodor exchanges the physical nest on Hodor’s back for a virtual one, inside Hodor.  In other words, he’s nesting in Hodor’s body and mind!  Inside Hodor, the ‘basket’ holding Bran may not be ‘swaying’ persé, but is no less precipitous; ‘As Hodor…he crossed the slender stone bridge that arched over the abyss’ (see full quote below) describes Bran’s outer as well as inner journey, which can be a treacherous ascent/descent, including from an ethical perspective. 

Moreover, by exchanging the wicker basket for Hodor who now serves as ‘bird receptacle,’ Bran has in the process essentially put Hodor in a cage of sorts by depriving him of a measure of his own free will (although, as a caveat, it may be debatable to which degree Hodor willingly submits to this arrangement, versus the case of Euron and his ‘mediums’ where it is always a clear-cut invasion/rape).  Arguably, Bran’s greater freedom of movement is bought at the expense of confining or harnessing Hodor, as if he were a horse.  

When he’s travelling around the cavern in Hodor, I found it intriguing that when one of the singers motions to him, Bran-in-the-birdcage-of-Hodor answers with ‘Hodor,’ to which ‘the real Hodor’ – i.e. Hodor-in-the-birdcage-of-Bran’s-making --who is described as ‘stirring down in his pit’ (sounds like a prison to me…in addition to evoking a dragon pit), responds with a ‘Hodor’ only Bran can hear.  The call and response – ‘Hodor’ to ‘Hodor’ – is like a bird call where one bird will call out and elicit a corresponding call from another bird, usually of the same species. Suffice it to say, there are multiple nested layers and presences at work.

Likewise, the singers and the arch-bird himself presiding over them, Bloodraven, are nesting in the weir roots in which they are described as being ‘enthroned’ rather than encaged.  The description of ‘twisted roots, old bone and rotten wool’ sounds very much like the eclectic composition of gathered items with which birds construct their nests.  And, as with Bran, Bloodraven can be said to symbolically nest or take up root within various trees, animals, people, times and places, and the atmospheric elements like fog and wind. 

As insinuated in the observation that the nest can be a ‘cage’ or a ‘throne,’ depending on ones perspective, there is a dialectic at work between freedom and imprisonment, nurturance and oppression, in Brandon and Brynden’s dark arts.

The weirwood throne is a wicker basket, nest, cage (including ribcage), sacrificial pyre, gallows tree, crucifix, magic wand, lightning conductor, antler rack, crown, dunce's cap, horse, dragon, flaming sword, and space-time ship (and a few more things besides)!  

To which we may now add 'grail, cup, and cauldron'!  When Bran is skinchanging the giant, the tree, or the wolf --  Hodor, the heart tree, or Summer can be said to be both 'impregnated by' and 'pregnant with' Bran!

Further to the topic of 'grail, cup or cauldron' as a drinking vessel and magical incubator at once, please recall (how can you forget...;)) what I wrote on your 'Nennymoans' thread, namely that entering the 'weirnet' is akin to a 'watery' experience in two major ways.  Firstly, it's compared to drinking a draught from the green fountain.  Secondly, it's compared to immersion, or even drowning, in a deep green sea, which is a pun on deep green see.  The greenseer floating in the green sea/see is like a fetus in free fall floating in the amniotic fluid of the womb.

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A Dance with Dragons - Bran III

"No, Bran." Now Meera sounded sad.

"It is given to a few to drink of that green fountain whilst still in mortal flesh, to hear the whisperings of the leaves and see as the trees see, as the gods see," said Jojen. "Most are not so blessed. The gods gave me only greendreams. My task was to get you here. My part in this is done."

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A Dance with Dragons - Bran III

"Some books. I like the fighting stories. My sister Sansa likes the kissing stories, but those are stupid."

"A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies," said Jojen. "The man who never reads lives only one. The singers of the forest had no books. No ink, no parchment, no written language. Instead they had the trees, and the weirwoods above all. When they died, they went into the wood, into leaf and limb and root, and the trees remembered. All their songs and spells, their histories and prayers, everything they knew about this world. Maesters will tell you that the weirwoods are sacred to the old gods. The singers believe they are the old gods. When singers die they become part of that godhood."

Bran's eyes widened. "They're going to kill me?"

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A Clash of Kings - Jon IV

Closer at hand, it was the trees that ruled. To south and east the wood went on as far as Jon could see, a vast tangle of root and limb painted in a thousand shades of green, with here and there a patch of red where a weirwood shouldered through the pines and sentinels, or a blush of yellow where some broadleafs had begun to turn. When the wind blew, he could hear the creak and groan of branches older than he was. A thousand leaves fluttered, and for a moment the forest seemed a deep green sea, storm-tossed and heaving, eternal and unknowable.

Ghost was not like to be alone down there, he thought. Anything could be moving under that sea, creeping toward the ringfort through the dark of the wood, concealed beneath those trees. Anything. How would they ever know? He stood there for a long time, until the sun vanished behind the saw-toothed mountains and darkness began to creep through the forest.

GRRM's concept of the grail is more neo-pagan than Christian.  Check out our thoughts surrounding this idea on the Poetry thread, in regards to Jethro Tull's 'Cup of Crimson Wonder', or the traditional whiskey-making folk song John Barleycorn -- concerning the distillation of the 'spirit' (pun intended) which always involves an element of corruption, i.e. the fermentation process to which GRRM also alludes with his frequent suggestions of people being boiled, pickled, preserved via salt, smoke, and alcohol (case in point:  Maester Aemon's body stored in the rum from which I believe Sam and Gilly drank a hearty few shots to him of 'dragon fire spirit' before getting up the courage to break some vows (it's my 'tinfoil' I suppose that I believe they mixed up the vats in their distracted tipsiness and overwrought emotional state)!

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A Feast for Crows - Samwell IV

"I like you too, Sam," whispered Gilly. "And I like this drink. It tastes like fire."

Yes, Sam thought, a drink for dragons. Their cups were empty, so he went over to the cask and filled them once again. The sun was low in the west, he saw, swollen to thrice its proper size. Its ruddy light made Gilly's face seem flushed and red. They drank a cup to Kojja Mo, and one to Dalla's boy, and one to Gilly's babe back on the Wall. And after that nothing would do but to drink two cups for Aemon of House Targaryen. "May the Father judge him justly," Sam said, sniffing. The sun was almost gone by the time they were done with Maester Aemon. Only a long thin line of red still glowed upon the western horizon, like a slash across the sky. Gilly said that the drink was making the ship spin round, so Sam helped her down the ladder to the women's quarters in the bow of the ship.

There was a lantern hanging just inside the cabin, and he managed to bang his head on it going in. "Ow," he said, and Gilly said, "Are you hurt? Let me see." She leaned close . . .

 

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1b. Also on the Seven, however, the Stranger is male and female- so maybe a sword could be a grail as well- and a sword made from a meteor would even better. So Dawn, Lightbringer, both, or Lightbringer becomes Dawn (if say the meteor was brought from Starfall to Essos to be worshiped and turned into Lightbringer and then redeemed by the LH during the Battle for the Dawn)...

Great point!  According to my thesis, the weirwood is the Stranger (and a sword...that's what @Pain killer Jane has identified with the copper-studded 'pennytree' planted smack-bang in the middle of the Teats a la Nissa) -- the 'faceless, nameless old gods of the woods'.  In sexual terms, the weirwood like a dragon is hermaphroditic and of fluid sexual orientation!  Besides the tree having phallic (the mushrooming ash protrusion rising above ground) as well as vaginal (the 'red door'/mouth above ground and hollow hills below ground) elements, think of the weirwood roots penetrating Bloodraven's 'breeches' in the 'marital consummation' of the wedding of the greenseer to the tree...(and Odin was sometimes given the derogatory designation of 'ergi' denoting a man sexually receptive to other men, on account of his practising seidre magic, traditionally thought to be more properly the domain of women).  I differ slightly in nuance with @LmL about this -- he prefers to see the weirwood as exclusively female, specifically heterosexual, whereas that's not quite what I'm seeing in the text!  GRRM does love the old gender role inversion switcheroo thing...where Brienne has the sword and Jaime is 'swordless', etc...

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2. Sticking to the idea of male/female mergers: The Grail is now a horn. The Horn of Winter and Dragonbinder, maybe?

Brilliant -- this is my favorite of your conceptualisations!  A horn can be both male and female, since it has 'horned god' associations, namely a pointy end ('stick them with the pointy end'!); as well as female 'cornucopia' (nursing 'horn of plenty'/ breast milk) associations, namely a hollow interior which can be filled with liquid and used as a drinking vessel -- as Jon advises Sam regarding the 'broken horn' found with the dragonglass cache at the Fist of the First Men.  Again, 'the fist' punching through the earth is a phallic symbol, whereas the Night's Watch brothers 'digging for buried treasure' there (Moles Town brothel allusion) hints at the union of male and female.

Also -- and this is most important from the perspective of my 'killing word' concept -- a horn is a musical instrument and Sam the current owner of the horn is a good singer.  Music is neither male nor female.  Applying the 'horn' metaphor to the weirwood, we can say that Bran the musician is using the 'weirnet' as a musical instrument, or rather orchestra, in order to communicate.  This is why Bran is able to communicate with Theon, despite the prevailing 'windless' conditions; in effect, the 'wind' or 'breath' is coming from Bran himself (as a musician might play on a woodwind instrument, although I also think there is string instrument imagery in the context of the weirwood, e.g. the word 'plucking' which I've previously unpacked at length).  There's a lot of drumming, ringing, whistling, whispering, rustling, sighing, moaning, wailing, skirling etc. that goes on around the weirwood.  GRRM is trying to say something about the nature of poetic creation -- because that's his business, his passion, and his life's calling.

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3a. Night's Queen is the Grail/womb of Ice. The Pair Dadeni is the Cauldron of Rebirth that brings the dead placed into it back to life. If Night's King were a Stark perhaps he had Ice with him?

3b. Dany is the Grail/womb of Fire. Not much to say, really, beyond it makes sense to me. Dragons plant no trees but they don't die in childbirth.

That's all I've got. Bring me your Grail Knight stuff, too. Florian, Galladon, Last Hero, Symeon, come one come all!

Both these wombs can be found in the symbolism surrounding the weirwood.  The 'womb of fire' equivalent is what I've termed the 'front door' of the weirwood -- represented by the bleeding maw on the tree trunk; the 'womb of ice' equivalent is what I've termed the 'back door' of the weirwood -- represented by the cold blue/black pool out of which Other-type women arise like the 'white woman of the lake'.  The latter 'door' has a sterile aspect, although it would seem Others are nevertheless created from it. 'The cauldron of rebirth' is a good analogy.  Note how Gared describes the process of 'being taken by the cold' as immersion in a 'sea' of first cold, then burning, then peaceful warm 'milk' (which we can relate by analogy to the rebirth scene as enacted in Varamyr's Prologue):

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A Game of Thrones - Prologue

The young knight turned back to his grizzled man-at-arms. Frost-fallen leaves whispered past them, and Royce's destrier moved restlessly. "What do you think might have killed these men, Gared?" Ser Waymar asked casually. He adjusted the drape of his long sable cloak.

"It was the cold," Gared said with iron certainty. "I saw men freeze last winter, and the one before, when I was half a boy. Everyone talks about snows forty foot deep, and how the ice wind comes howling out of the north, but the real enemy is the cold. It steals up on you quieter than Will, and at first you shiver and your teeth chatter and you stamp your feet and dream of mulled wine and nice hot fires. It burns, it does. Nothing burns like the cold. But only for a while. Then it gets inside you and starts to fill you up, and after a while you don't have the strength to fight it. It's easier just to sit down or go to sleep. They say you don't feel any pain toward the end. First you go weak and drowsy, and everything starts to fade, and then it's like sinking into a sea of warm milk. Peaceful, like."

"Such eloquence, Gared," Ser Waymar observed. "I never suspected you had it in you."

And Bloodraven encourages Bran, 'let darkness be your shield, your cloak, your mother's milk' in the weirwood cavern by the underground, bottomless 'sunless sea' (the equivalent of all the other cold black pools of water). So, by entering the 'weirnet,' is Bran himself becoming transformed into an Other?

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A Dance with Dragons - Bran III

The singers made Bran a throne of his own, like the one Lord Brynden sat, white weirwood flecked with red, dead branches woven through living roots. They placed it in the great cavern by the abyss, where the black air echoed to the sound of running water far below. Of soft grey moss they made his seat. Once he had been lowered into place, they covered him with warm furs.

There he sat, listening to the hoarse whispers of his teacher. "Never fear the darkness, Bran." The lord's words were accompanied by a faint rustling of wood and leaf, a slight twisting of his head. "The strongest trees are rooted in the dark places of the earth. Darkness will be your cloak, your shield, your mother's milk. Darkness will make you strong."

The moon was a crescent, thin and sharp as the blade of a knife. Snowflakes drifted down soundlessly to cloak the soldier pines and sentinels in white. The drifts grew so deep that they covered the entrance to the caves, leaving a white wall that Summer had to dig through whenever he went outside to join his pack and hunt. Bran did not oft range with them in those days, but some nights he watched them from above.

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A Dance with Dragons - Prologue

That was his last thought as a man.

True death came suddenly; he felt a shock of cold, as if he had been plunged into the icy waters of a frozen lake. Then he found himself rushing over moonlit snows with his packmates close behind him. Half the world was dark. One Eye, he knew. He bayed, and Sly and Stalker gave echo.

When they reached the crest the wolves paused. Thistle, he remembered, and a part of him grieved for what he had lost and another part for what he'd done. Below, the world had turned to ice. Fingers of frost crept slowly up the weirwood, reaching out for each other. The empty village was no longer empty. Blue-eyed shadows walked amongst the mounds of snow. Some wore brown and some wore black and some were naked, their flesh gone white as snow. A wind was sighing through the hills, heavy with their scents: dead flesh, dry blood, skins that stank of mold and rot and urine. Sly gave a growl and bared her teeth, her ruff bristling. Not men. Not prey. Not these.

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52 minutes ago, SeaWitch said:

Triple goddess as stages of life/moon phases,  Father/Smith/Warrior is basically Odin/Thor/Tyr or Esus/Toutatis/Taranis. Representatives of the trifunctional hypothesis.  Sage, warrior, craftsman.

...I'm now going to go back and investigate three-fold deaths. Or has someone done this already?

it does feel like there should be a cauldron somewhere. The whole Formorian/Tuatha de Danaan aspect of Westerosi origins, one of the fertility guys should have been brewing mead or something.

Xaro mentions the wine of poetry somewhere in Asshai, I think.

And on the Fomorian/Tuatha thing:

I know, right? I've had a bee in my bonnet about Jaime (Nuada) vs Euron (Balor) for a while now and either Sarella or Sam coring the apple of Euron's eye for him.

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41 minutes ago, ravenous reader said:

 

 

The cauldron is the weirwood.  The 'three-fold deaths' of the greenseer -- hanging on the tree, being pierced through by the tree, drowning in the 'green sea/see.'

Aha!

41 minutes ago, ravenous reader said:

 

I think it's the same thing symbolically -- think of it as a form of 'sisters' stew' containing dubious lumps of 'sea creatures' in its bottomless depths, occasionally bobbing up to reveal themselves!  Both corrupted, poisonous and the 'pale bodies' frequently emerging, even erupting, from these 'black bodies' of water more generally belies their apparent 'tranquility' (Osha, Dany, the pregnant woman in Bran's dream swearing bloody vengeance).  The 'black pool' is analogous to the 'shade of the evening' trees -- and both are connected to the weirwood, being its 'flipside'.  This is graphically demonstrated by the heart tree brooding over its reflection in the black pool, when it spies Bran. 

Summer sniffs at her, almost as if he's trying to differentiate whether she's alive or dead!
 

 

And the cold pool is surrounded by hot springs. I'm sold. And the "Sister's stew"! Excellent.

41 minutes ago, ravenous reader said:

I think GRRM is deconstructing the notion of male as 'stabby' vs. female as 'non-stabby'.  Smashing this dichotomy, the 'female' is shown to be both 'grabby' and 'stabby', e.g. in Theon's 'vagina dentata' dream:

 

 

I'd forgotten that dream. Probably on purpose. Do you think the Black Gate could be another vagina dentata, but "tamed"?

41 minutes ago, ravenous reader said:

 

I disagree with most of this :).  Firstly, I don't know about the Seven, but in the old gods mythos there's definitely a hint of original sin (although I agree this is not exclusively associated with a woman leading a man into temptation, but rather with a man who 'felt no fear' and jumped in of his own accord), or all the weirwoods would not be weeping blood in 'mute appeal', which is simultaneously an accusation recorded on their faces of something terrible which happened historically, a transgression for which humans (specifically I'd posit the 'naughty greenseers') are probably responsible.  

Secondly, there is a Holy Grail -- the Weirwood.  But you're right -- it's broken (probably broken in the moment of its activation by the original sin itself -- yes, a paradox, just the way GRRM prefers to roll).  Broken things don't necessarily rule out redemption -- 'there's a crack in everything; that's how the light gets in...'!   Thus, the weirwood embodies the healing-harming dualism.  Allow me to quote myself (from 'Bran's growing powers' re-read) :P:


 

 

To the first- It seems clear that the world is "fallen", but I'm not sure to what extant humanity bears all of the racial guilt or is aware of it in the first place. With so many other races around I'm thinking there is enough blame to go around but I see your point about the weeping weirwoods.

And I love the weirwoods as cauldrons.

41 minutes ago, ravenous reader said:

 

 

Great point!  According to my thesis, the weirwood is the Stranger (and a sword...that's what @Pain killer Jane has identified with the copper-studded 'pennytree' planted smack-bang in the middle of the Teats a la Nissa) -- the 'faceless, nameless old gods of the woods'.  In sexual terms, the weirwood like a dragon is hermaphroditic and of fluid sexual orientation!  Besides the tree having phallic (the mushrooming ash protrusion rising above ground) as well as vaginal (the 'red door'/mouth above ground and hollow hills below ground) elements, think of the weirwood roots penetrating Bloodraven's 'breeches' in the 'marital consummation' of the wedding of the greenseer to the tree...(and Odin was sometimes given the derogatory designation of 'ergi' denoting a man sexually receptive to other men, on account of his practising seidre magic traditionally thought to be more properly the domain of women).  I differ slightly in nuance with @LmL about this -- he prefers to see the weirwood as exclusively female, specifically heterosexual, whereas that's not quite what I'm seeing in the text!  GRRM does love the old gender role inversion switcheroo thing...where Brienne has the sword and Jaime is 'swordless', etc...

PKJ's sin-tree as the sword that slew the seasons!Could the weirwoods be "living explosions" that transcend time, "eternal" embodiments of the moment of fertilization above as well as below?

41 minutes ago, ravenous reader said:

 

Brilliant -- this is my favorite of your conceptualisations!  A horn can be both male and female, since it has 'horned god' associations, namely a pointy end ('stick them with the pointy end'!); as well as female 'cornucopia' (nursing 'horn of plenty'/ breast milk) associations, namely a hollow interior which can be filled with liquid and used as a drinking vessel -- as Jon advises Sam regarding the 'broken horn' found with the dragonglass cache at the Fist of the First Men.  Again, 'the fist' punching through the earth is a phallic symbol, whereas the Night's Watch brothers 'digging for buried treasure' there (Moles Town brothel allusion) hints at the union of male and female.

Also -- and this is most important from the perspective of my 'killing word' concept -- a horn is a musical instrument and Sam the current owner of the horn is a good singer.  Music is neither male nor female.  Applying the 'horn' metaphor to the weirwood, we can say that Bran the musician is using the 'weirnet' as a musical instrument, or rather orchestra, in order to communicate.  This is why Bran is able to communicate with Theon, despite the prevailing 'windless' conditions; in effect, the 'wind' or 'breath' is coming from Bran himself (as a musician might play on a woodwind instrument, although I also think there is string instrument imagery in the context of the weirwood, e.g. the word 'plucking' which I've previously unpacked at length).  There's a lot of drumming, ringing, whistling, whispering, rustling, sighing, moaning, wailing, skirling etc. that goes on around the weirwood.  GRRM is trying to say something about the nature of poetic creation -- because that's his business, his passion, and his life's calling.

 

Interesting. Something I've been meaning to ask you about springs to mind- weirwood bows (pluck pluck!) and their relationship to the killing word. I have a feeling that the driftwood cudgels of the Drowned Men (supplied, they believe, from their god's undersea realm as opposed to just washing ashore courtesy of the Storm God) may be related.

41 minutes ago, ravenous reader said:

 

And Bloodraven encourages Bran, 'let darkness be your shield, your cloak, your mother's milk' in the weirwood cavern by the underground, bottomless 'sunless sea' (the equivalent of all the other cold black pools of water). So, by entering the 'weirnet,' is Bran himself becoming transformed into an Other?

Are glass candles (as opposed to magic mirrors) hermaphroditic or masculine?

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