Heresy 200 The bicentennial edition

[ReturnOfCaponBreath]

20 minutes ago, LynnS said:

I would add Qyburn (of Qarth?) to that list.  I suspect is the sorcerer who used Varys in his glass candle ritual.
 

That he did nothing to dull the senses sounds like Qyburn's MO.

Good point I'd forgotten Qyburn.

Edit. Wouldn't Varys have met Qyburn in KL though? I dont recall any recognition from Varys. Also Qyburn offers Jaime milk of the poppy when fixing his hand in SOS so not sure it is his MO?

[wolfmaid7]

22 hours ago, divica said:

If Victarion is dead there should be something in the text about him not breathing or being cold as it happens whith cold hands. Honestly I have no idea if it is written anything about those 2 conditions. The other quotes you used about him can just be a literary way of saying is death is certain (like he is a dead man walking) because moqorro is using a scheme to make him die when he uses the horn. If you think about it, the red priests think of danny as her saviur. The one chosen to convert her won t help someone steal her dragons... He will use it to prove his value!

 

I brought it up because it isn t a magic that greenseers have and it exists! That was about when you said greenseers are the base of all magic and I have been guiving exemples of magic that greenseers don t have. So they are just another form of magic instead of its root...

And while we have no indication that warging the wolves gave the Stark bunch super human strength we know that the white walkers are faster and stronger than men and they are suposed to be wargs... I talked about targ because the most accepted theory about jon and could explain the setence " don t wake the dragon" and even prove that there is a bit of dragon inside each targ...

ps. I suposed that if baratheons have magic it would be related to blacksmithing.

I don't know what to tell you.I bring up a point in reply to your question and you immediately shift.I.e.The point to bringing up Coldhand's ( has agency ) was in response to you saying "Vic is not a marionette" .He doesn't need to be in order to be dead.As to

your other statement: There doesn't need to be something that says Vic is cold,not breathing etc.There just needs to be inference of his situation. Morroqo could have dispensed with the "your death is here" and just healed him,but he didn't he just transformed Vic. His death is still there but he no longer is what he was.

If i burn someone in this story,and you slit someone throat in this story to make it rain,are both of these considered blood sacrifices? 

The greenseers wear the skins of others,the FM wears the skins of others furthermore and probably more important is this

The Faceless men- Kindly man

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“Let us see.” The priest lowered his cowl. Beneath he had no face; only a yellowed skull with a

few scraps of skin still clinging to the cheeks, and a white worm wriggling from one empty eye

socket.

COTF/Bloodraven

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Before them a pale lord in ebon finery sat dreaming in a
 tangled nest of roots, a woven weirwood throne that
 embraced his withered limbs as a mother does a child.

His body was so skeletal and his clothes so rotted that at
 first Bran took him for another corpse, a dead man
 propped up so long that the roots had grown over him,

under him, and through him. What skin the corpse lord
 showed was white, save for a bloody blotch that crept up
 his neck onto his cheek. His white hair was fine and thin as
 root hair and long enough to brush against the earthen floor.
Roots coiled around his legs like wooden serpents. One
 burrowed through his breeches into the desiccated flesh of
 his thigh, to emerge again from his shoulder. A spray of
 dark red leaves sprouted from his skull, and grey
 mushrooms spotted his brow. A little skin remained,
 stretched across his face, tight and hard as white leather,
but even that was fraying, and here and there the brown and
 yellow bone beneath was poking through.

“Are you the three-eyed crow?” Bran heard himself say. A
 three-eyed crowshould have three eyes. He has only one,
 and that one red. Bran could feel the eye staring at him,
shining like a pool of blood in the torchlight. Where his other
 eye should have been, a thin white root grew from an emptysocket, down his cheek, and into his neck.

The Red Priest-R'hollor

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"...a man sat lost in the tangle of weirwood. ... A scarecrow of a man, he wore a ragged black cloak ... One of his eyes was gone, Arya saw, the flesh about the socker scarred and puckered..."
 

 

Dvica what common figure appears across the board? This tells us a couple things .Strong allusion to Odin as well as the author saying we are dealing with the same entity that either infiltrated or is the origin of many of these religions.

We are also presented with another group of imagery.

1.Bran who in his Crow dream sees dreamers impaled on ice spears.

2.In the cave we see COTF impaled with Weirwood roots

3.Vic who also had a crow dream,is one eyed andddddd:

 

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Aeron Damphair looked. The mound of skulls was gone. Now it was metal underneath the Crow’s Eye. A great, tall seat of razor-sharp iron of barbs and blades and broken swords, all dripping blood. Impaled upon the longer spikes were the bodies of the gods. The Maiden was there, and the Father, and the Mother and the Warrior and Crone and Smith, even the Stranger. They hung side by side with all manner of queer, foreign gods, The Great Shephard and the Black Goat, Three Headed Trios and the Pale Child Bakkalon, the Lord of Light, and the Butterfly God of Naath, and there swollen in green heft devoured by crabs, the Drowned God festered with the Red Sea Horse, still dripping from its hair.

I don't see how and why you made this leap

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And while we have no indication that warging the wolves gave the Stark bunch super human strength we know that the white walkers are faster and stronger than men and they are suposed to be wargs... I talked about targ because the most accepted theory about jon and could explain the setence " don t wake the dragon" and even prove that there is a bit of dragon inside each targ...

If we have no indication that warging makes the Starks exceptionally strong ( and it doesn't) How does the the wws come into this?

1.The wws being wargs is a new one for me.I have heard...

a.Craster's babes

b.Shadow babies ( which i think they could be)

c. A greenseer type Skinchanging ice and snow( i subscribe to that)

You may find on Heresy not all members believe that Jon is the son of Rhaegar and Lyanna.Wake the Dragon was just a term a mean prince used to abuse his sister.It is not a Targ thing.Rhaegar is certainly not known for his temper.

1.Brandon Stark was a hot head

2.The Baratheons are known for their temper with Robert's anger being legendary.

 

 

P.S.The Baratheons are the only ones in this story who can trace their lineage to actual gods.

 

17 hours ago, ravenous reader said:

Binding spells are not a form of skinchanging; however, they are a form of magic, as any spells are.  When Sam says the words 'I am the sword...' etc., that's a spell which magically opens (or 'unbinds' if you like) the 'Black Gate.'  Words have power, including magical power. I've written some key observations on that topic here, summarizing my 'killing word' thread , which you might enjoy reading, with my compliments .  Skinchanging is closer to telepathy; and this involves a 'silent shout', which perhaps the dragonbinder horn is mimicking/approximating (like a 'dog whistle').

Although she lacks the skinchanging capacity of someone such as Jon or Bran, Dany definitely has a 'mental connection' to Drogon, though.  That much is undeniable.

Dany the Dragonlord and the dragonbond

Dany can and has melded her spirit with a dragon.The telepathy is also there.

[LynnS]

15 minutes ago, ReturnOfCaponBreath said:

Good point I'd forgotten Qyburn.

Edit. Wouldn't Varys have met Qyburn in KL though? I dont recall any recognition from Varys. Also Qyburn offers Jaime milk of the poppy when fixing his hand in SOS so not sure it is his MO?

I'm not sure that Qyburn and Varys have ever been in the same room together.  Qyburn takes over as master of spies and Varys disappears with Tyrion.  I don't think they crossed paths.  Although Varys seems to know the identity of the certain man; he would be adept at avoiding him and perhaps keeping track of him as well.  

Qyburn is something sinister disguised as a kindly old man. He is after all a vivisectionist, if he can get away with it.  The difference between Jaime and a young orphaned boy is that there is no benefit in doing harm to Jaime; while an orphan boy is of no consequence and he can do as he pleases.

[ReturnOfCaponBreath]

9 minutes ago, LynnS said:

I'm not sure that Qyburn and Varys have ever been in the same room together.  Qyburn takes over as master of spies and Varys disappears with Tyrion.  I don't think they crossed paths.  Although Varys seems to know the identity of the certain man; he would be adept at avoiding him and perhaps keeping track of him as well.  

Qyburn is something sinister disguised as a kindly old man. He is after all a vivisectionist, if he can get away with it.  The difference between Jaime and a young orphaned boy is that there is no benefit in doing harm to Jaime; while an orphan boy is of no consequence and he can do as he pleases.

He's definitely sinister I'm just not sure there is precedent in the text on not using pain relief etc to link him to Varys cutting.

[LynnS]

3 minutes ago, ReturnOfCaponBreath said:

He's definitely sinister I'm just not sure there is precedent in the text on not using pain relief etc to link him to Varys cutting.

He was ejected from the Citadel for that reason.  Whatever he was doing with the Mountain didn't involve any pain relief.  

[Melifeather]

5 hours ago, LynnS said:

Frey Family Reunion made a quip about it at HoBW at one time.  Considering the 'madness' of Targaryens... drinking wildfyre to transform into a dragon for example and Viserys' oft repeated 'wake the dragon';  I wonder where these notions originate.  The Targs are mysteriously saved from the doom; receive a prophecy about the PwiP etc and now Dany is the chosen one, or the one chosen to be the mother of dragons.  It makes sense to me that she is the chosen of R'hllor and that some ancestor lives a second life as a dragon god.

Our discussion and dissection of the prince that was promised, the three heads (payment) of the dragon, makes me think that "waking" the dragon is referring to the process of bonding with and hatching a dragon egg. We cannot assume that the processes of skinchanging or bonding are the same (and in fact I think we recognize that they're very different) between the two magics of ice and fire. The Starks seem to be genetically predisposed to having wolf blood, although Ned and others only identified Lyanna and Brandon as having the wolf blood in that generation. As readers we're privy to the knowledge that Jon, Robb, Sansa, Arya, Bran, and Rickon all have the wolf blood. They just needed a loving bond to an animal to "wake the wolf blood". The Targaryens on the other hand may not be genetically predisposed, although they went to great lengths to marry brother to sister to keep their blood pure. In fact they are just one family of Valyrians that became dragon lords. They had to go through a process to "wake the dragon". The Targaryens were said to sleep with their dragon eggs in the hopes of making a connection, but we know that process didn't work with the more current generations, because Aegon V slept with an egg and his never hatched. Subsequent Targaryens also had eggs that never hatched. They searched for ways to make the damn things hatch including whatever happened at Summerhall, and (we suspect) at the tower of joy. Although I have a feeling that what happened at the tower of joy never included a dragon egg. I think they were trying to resurrect Rhaegar in a similar process that Mirri used on Drogo.

3 hours ago, LynnS said:

On the subject of the Citadel;  it seems to me that one of their most important functions is weather prediction.  Given that the climate is unbalanced by magic; what knowledge do they have that allows such reliable predictions?   The collection of astronomical data from maesters across the land; sounds a bit like compiling an almanac.  How can the Citadel make such precise announcements when the duration of the seasons is apparently random and unpredictable.  All we know is that the length of the summer equals the length of the winter.

We have some idea of what happens to the population in Westeros when winter arrives; but know nothing about Essos. 

It wasn't a perfect process as evidenced by the "False Spring", which indicates that the Citadel sent out the ravens announcing an end to winter, but were mistaken.

[Frey family reunion]

20 hours ago, ravenous reader said:

'The prince that was promised' is like an Old Norse poetic device called a 'kenning', an odd compound circumlocution reminiscent of those attributed to the COTF, who are referred to using a variety of vague circumlocutions inevitably introducing 'errors in the translation' -- e.g. 'those who sing the song of the earth' or 'the children of the forest', both denoting the same thing.  Perhaps the original language in which the prophecy was given was the True Tongue, and this being an oral rather than written tradition, would mean it was sung to someone, who then wrote it down in his own language.  Or, maybe it's the other way around -- the prophecy is recited to a singer in exchange for a song, for which we have the parallel in the text of the Ghost of High Heart (who is rumored to have COTF blood) and Tom Sevenstrings / Rhaegar.  I keep returning to that enigmatic reference to 'the manner in which Brandon learned to comprehend the speech of the children is a tale in itself, and not worth repeating here...,' which, if it's to be believed, suggests there have been some highly talented linguists in history (besides @Voice, of course... )!  It would also make sense that a greenseer might have tapped into the future via the 'weirnet' and then reported the 'vision' to someone with an interest in recording it.  As far as your theory, Septon Barth certainly had an interest in the lore of the First Men, as evidenced by his banned treatise on the language of ravens -- 'the higher mystery taught to the First Men by the Children' -- researched with help of rare texts which he obtained from Castle Black.  These source texts are unlikely to have been written in Valyrian.

I like this line of thinking quite bit.  Perhaps the "simplest" explanation is that the Prince that was Promised is a line from the Song of Ice and Fire, a song sung by the Children, and recorded by the First Men through runestones.  When Aemon says 

Quote

What fools we were, who thought ourselves so wise!  The error crept in from the translation.  Dragons are neither male nor female, Barth saw the truth of that, but now one and now the other, as changeable as flame.  The language misled us all for a thousand years.

Who are the fools who thought themselves so wise?  Is Aemon talking about the Targaryen family?  Doubtful, the Targaryens may have described themselves as great, and powerful, but wisdom doesn't seem to be a common descriptor even among themselves.

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King Jaehaerys once told me that madness and greatness are two sides of the same coin.  Every time a new Targaryen is born, he said, the gods toss the coin in the air and the world hold its breath to see how it will land."

But Aemon is a member of two other families besides House Targaryen.  He is a member of the Night's Watch and the Citadel.  And if there is any group that would associate themselves with wisdom, it's the Maesters.  So I think it's likely that the Maesters have been trying to solve the riddle of this language for a thousand years.  The fact that Aemon associates the Prince that was Promised with the War for the Dawn is significant as well:

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But all of them seemed surprised to hear Maester Aemon murmur, "It is the war for the dawn you speak of, my lady.  But where is the prince that was promised?"

So it really makes perfect sense, that the Prince that was Promised is a line from the Song of Ice and Fire directly dealing with the war for the dawn, sung by the Children and recorded by runes from the First Men.  Which in turn is attempted to be translated by the Citadel.  The line of the song which was translated by the Maesters to the Prince that was Promised sent Aemon looking for a male Targaryen since 

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"No one ever looked for a girl," he said.  "It was a prince that was promised, not a princess...

If this song of Ice and Fire and the prince that was promised is associated by Aemon and Rhaegar with "the dragon has three heads" (which I think may be a Targaryen or Valyrian idea) then this gives an interesting twist on the idea of waking dragons from stone.  Aemon and Rhaegar were trying to wake "the dragon" by translating runestones of the First Men.

 

 

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I like your idea of 'the prince that was promised' and the 'sphinx riddle-not-riddler' referring to the transfer of human consciousness into a dragon.  Are you arguing that this hasn't occurred yet, regardless of also theorizing that Drogo's and Rhaego's souls are both resident in Drogon?  Talking of riddles, the preservation of consciousness in fire, given that dragons are 'fire made flesh', is a paradox -- since fire consumes, which should be antithetical to preservation.  Based on the examples in the text of skinchangers being evicted from hosts which are on fire (e.g. the burning eagle of Orell, or the burning weirwoods), it shouldn't actually be possible for anyone to transfer their consciousness into a dragon and survive the process.  The only people we've witnessed being preserved instead of consumed by fire include Daenerys, Beric Dondarrion, and Catelyn/Stoneheart (am I forgetting anyone?).  Of these, Dany is the likeliest candidate for potentially achieving successful fusion of this kind with a dragon in future, given firstly, that she is the only one of the three who has been burned alive and survived  -- stepping into the funeral pyre being a metaphor for skinchanging a dragon; secondly, that her dragon dreams may be analogous to the wolf dreams calling a warg; and thirdly, that the sphinx which Tyrion sees symbolizes Dany (the missing mate that was carted off to Vaes Dothrak symbolizes Viserys, whom Drogo disparagingly dubbed 'Cart King' (Khal Rhaggat), hinting at this interpretation):

My guess is for the process to be complete, three consciousnesses or "three heads" have to be transferred.  I think Dany's funeral pyre was the beginning of the process but we haven't reached the end yet.  If Rhaego's consciousness had been transferred into Dragon during the blood magic ritual, both of their consciousnesses may have been transferred to one of the eggs (Drogon's if I had to choose).  Which puts them one "head" away from being "The Dragon".  My guess is Dany will be the "third head" for Drogon.  Take her two dragon dreams together:

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Yet when she slept that night, she dreamt the dragon dream again.  Viserys was not in it this time.  There was only her and the dragon.  It's scales were black as night, wet and slick with blood.  Her blood, Dany sensed.  It's eyes were pools of molten magma, and when it opened its mouth, the flame came roaring out in a hot jet.  She could hear it singing to her.  She opened her arms to the fire, embraced it, let it swallow her whole, let it cleanse her and temper her and scour her clean.  She could feel her flesh sear and blacken and slough away, could feel her blood boil and turn to steam, and yet there was no pain.  She felt strong and new and fierce.

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Ghosts lined the hallway, dressed in the faded raiment of kings.  In their hands were swords of pale fire.  They had hair of silver and hair of gold and hair of platinum white, and their eyes were opal and amethyst, tourmaline and jade.  "Faster," they cried, "faster, faster."  She raced, her feet melting the stone wherever they touched.  "Faste!" The ghosts cried as one, and she screamed and threw herself forward.  A great knife of pain ripped down her back, and she felt her skin tear open and smelled the stench of burning blood and saw the shadow of wings.  And Daenerys Targaryen flew.  

"...wake the dragon..."

This may simply be foreshadowing of Dany's rebirth as the Mother of Dragons, or it could once again be more literal than we think.  Dany is having premonitions of being consumed by fire and being reborn as a literal dragon.  Which would be the culmination of a Targaryen obsession.  An obsession that led Aerion to be consumed by Wildfire, which led Aerys to try and turn King's Landing into his own funeral pyre, and possible the reason behind the tragedy at Summerhall.  The Valyrian kings of old are urging Dany forward to fulfilling their greatest desire, which even the dragon lords and riders of old were unable to achieve.  

 

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Assuming 'solving the riddle of the sphinx' was Rhaegar's intention with the 'tower of joy', why would he have needed Lyanna's 'wolf blood', or her child's hybrid 'dragon-wolf blood' (assuming he's the father) to accomplish that end?  Perhaps skinchanging a dragon requires skinchanger blood.  Perhaps Targaryen blood on its own is not enough.  It may be sufficient to bond with a dragon, ride a dragon, but not skinchange a dragon!  Perhaps by sacrificing a wolf-dragon hybrid child, and therefore having 'stolen' or co-opted the wolf blood, the Targaryan father or mother of said child has a better chance of skinchanging the dragon somehow?

I'm still a bit on the fence as to whether Jon was one of the children at the tower of joy.  I'm definitely leaning in that direction, since it helps explain Rhaegar's interest in Lyanna (or more specifically Lyanna's unborn child), but I can also see a scenario where Ned's interest in the tower of joy may have involved another child (perhaps Ashara was not "dishonored" by a Stark, but instead by Howland Reed, who as others have pointed out did appear to have taken quite the notice of Ashara Dane at the Harrenhal tourney).

But for the sake of argument, let's say that Jon was one of the children slated for sacrifice.  I think that perhaps we do need the bloodline of a warg.  And if you look back to the blood magic ritual before the funeral pyre, it seems that Mirri was attempting to create some type of "warg" connection between Drogo and his horse.

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The stallion kicked and reared as Rakharo, Quaro,and Aggo pulled him close to the tub where the khal floated like one already dead, pus and blood seeping from his wound to stain the bath waters.  Mirri Maz Duur chanted words in a tongue that Dany did not know, and a knife appeared in her hand.  Dany never saw where it came from.  It looked old; hammered red bronze, leaf-shaped, its blade covered with ancient glyphs. The maegi drew it across the stallion's throat, under the noble head, and the horse screamed and shuddered as the blood poured out of him in a red rush.  He would have collapsed, but the men of her khans held him up.  "Strength of the mount, go into the rider," Mirr sang as horse blood swirled into the waters of Drogo's bath.  "Strength of the beast, go into the man."

The unfortunate end product of that ritual was then transferred into the dragon eggs during the funeral pyre.

[LynnS]

2 minutes ago, Feather Crystal said:

Our discussion and dissection of the prince that was promised, the three heads (payment) of the dragon, makes me think that "waking" the dragon is referring to the process of bonding with and hatching a dragon egg. We cannot assume that the processes of skinchanging or bonding are the same (and in fact I think we recognize that they're very different) between the two magics of ice and fire. The Starks seem to be genetically predisposed to having wolf blood, although Ned and others only identified Lyanna and Brandon as having the wolf blood in that generation. As readers we're privy to the knowledge that Jon, Robb, Sansa, Arya, Bran, and Rickon all have the wolf blood. They just needed a loving bond to an animal to "wake the wolf blood". The Targaryens on the other hand may not be genetically predisposed, although they went to great lengths to marry brother to sister to keep their blood pure. In fact they are just one family of Valyrians that became dragon lords. They had to go through a process to "wake the dragon". The Targaryens were said to sleep with their dragon eggs in the hopes of making a connection, but we know that process didn't work with the more current generations, because Aegon V slept with an egg and his never hatched. Subsequent Targaryens also had eggs that never hatched. They searched for ways to make the damn things hatch including whatever happened at Summerhall, and (we suspect) at the tower of joy. Although I have a feeling that what happened at the tower of joy never included a dragon egg. I think they were trying to resurrect Rhaegar in a similar process that Mirri used on Drogo.

It wasn't a perfect process as evidenced by the "False Spring", which indicates that the Citadel sent out the ravens announcing an end to winter, but were mistaken.

I suspect that Dany isn't pure Targ bloodline but a combination of something much older in the Dayne line.  We have some hint that Dany at least is different when she is able to withstand the heat of her bathwater at Illyrio's manse without being scalded.  Perhaps this is why Illyrio gave her the dragon eggs in the first place.  Then she is able to handle the dragon eggs directly from the brazer without a blister.  I'm not sure if other dragon riders in the Targ line had this quality.  But I suspect that it is something that Illyrio noticed.

[LordBlakeney]

On 6/22/2017 at 8:28 PM, Frey family reunion said:

But it occurred to me that the "language" that would cause the most difficulty in translation would be the runes of the First Men.  

If the Prince that was Promised was supposed to be a dragon with a human consciousness (hence Aemon's strange segue to Septon Barthl's discussion of dragon gender) it might make sense that the First Men who were familiar with wargs and the transfer of consciousness would have  come up with this prophecy.

Doesn't it say in the books that the original crown of the Kings of Winter had runes on it? Wouldn't it be something if the prophecy about the Prince that was Promised came to the Targaryens from the Starks when they surrendered their crown the day Torrhen knelt?

Robb Stark's crown is described as "incised with the runes of the First Men" and it is said to closely resemble the ancient crown. Even if the Starks themselves could no longer translate the runes, Aegon could have given it to the Maesters to attempt a translation, or perhaps it was puzzled out in the hundreds of years since the Conquest by various members of the Targaryen family. Maybe it's what Rhaegar read one day and set in motion a lifelong obsession.

We're told messengers went back and forth all night between the hosts of King Torrhen and Aegon the Conqueror, negotiating the details. If the prophecy says something about dragons or dragon princes fighting the cold, I can see the North willing to compromise with Aegon and his dragons. 

I like the idea of the prophecy coming from the First Men. Aegon finding something about dragons on the ancient crown of a conquered king of a magical land is a solid basis for Targaryen obsession with the prophecy. Plus I'm partial to the idea that's been floated around that we'll see the original Crown of Winter before the books are done. What cooler way to reveal a prophecy about a fire and blood dragon prince that's only been hinted at in the text than to chisel it into bronze and iron, metals "dark and strong to fight against the cold."

And it fits our historical sensibilities - conquerors being hailed as gods and the fulfillment of prophecy? The Spanish used that to their advantage when they built their New World empire.

[JNR]

20 hours ago, ravenous reader said:

Glad to hear it!  You are admitting the heresy of the validity and necessity of 'symbolic interpretation', yes...?!  

Well, there's a huge difference between

(1) symbolism as used by in-world prophecies 

(2) symbolism as interpreted by readers of the story written by GRRM

We know beyond any faint shadow of a doubt that symbolism in prophecies not only exists, in the ASOIAF book series, but is the typical norm. 

For instance, reading the Ghost's prophecy of a maid with purple serpents in her hair, we don't ever expect there to to be a literal maid with purple serpents in her hair.  We expect that to turn out to be a symbolic representation of truth.  Sure enough, that's exactly what we get.

Also, translators routinely focus on meaning, not the literal phrasing.

In translating "give me a break" into Chinese, a translator would not write a Chinese sentence that means "hand me a divide" but something like "I don't think you're correct," or similar.  

Literalism always gives way to the translator's idea of the meaning, which might be wrong.  So errors can and do easily creep into translations for this reason, just as Aemon explicitly says they can.

[Melifeather]

56 minutes ago, Frey family reunion said:

If this song of Ice and Fire and the prince that was promised is associated by Aemon and Rhaegar with "the dragon has three heads" (which I think may be a Targaryen or Valyrian idea) then this gives an interesting twist on the idea of waking dragons from stone.  Aemon and Rhaegar were trying to wake "the dragon" by translating runestones of the First Men

IMO the "stones" are the dragon eggs, which are as hard as stone. Which is why I believe "waking the dragon" is the awakening of a type of skinchanger-type-connection between the hatched dragon and dragon lord/lady. The parallel being the Stark warg to direwolf, and in Lyanna's instance a horse...an awakening of the wolf's blood.

[Black Crow]

13 minutes ago, LordBlakeney said:

Doesn't it say in the books that the original crown of the Kings of Winter had runes on it? Wouldn't it be something if the prophecy about the Prince that was Promised came to the Targaryens from the Starks when they surrendered their crown the day Torrhen knelt?

No. I don't think the timing works. The Conquest was 300 years ago, the prophecy seems to back much further to The Dreamer and beyond, which is why the Targaryens got out of Dodge before the Doom and long before Aegon came over the water.

[LordBlakeney]

1 minute ago, Black Crow said:

No. I don't think the timing works. The Conquest was 300 years ago, the prophecy seems to back much further to The Dreamer and beyond, which is why the Targaryens got out of Dodge before the Doom and long before Aegon came over the water.

Do you have the quote on that? I remember it just being Dany the Dreamer foresaw the Doom, I don't remember the Prince that was Promised prophecy being mentioned as well. Are we given some clues about its timing that I missed?

[redriver]

Just a quick shout to congratulate you on the bicentennial, Black Crow.Great work.

I do lurk occasionally and i will be back!Some excellent new and "old" posters ,btw.

[LordBlakeney]

5 minutes ago, LordBlakeney said:

No. I don't think the timing works. The Conquest was 300 years ago, the prophecy seems to back much further to The Dreamer and beyond, which is why the Targaryens got out of Dodge before the Doom and long before Aegon came over the water.

From what I can find the only mention of timing in regards to TPTWP comes from Melisandre, and in that passage she is conflating Azor Ahai and TPTWP.

"You are he who must stand against the Other. The one whose coming was prophesied five thousand years ago. The red comet was your herald. You are the prince that was promised, and if you fail the world fails with you." - Melisandre, to Stannis. Storm of Swords. Davos VI

Melisandre isn't the best expert on TPTWP or Azor Ahai. She's out doing her own thing, reading and misreading the signs. Plus many have theorized that Azor Ahai/TPTWP prophecies are not necessarily speaking of the same thing. Melisandre is just conflating the roles. 

Point being, there is no backstory for where the TPTWP prophecy comes from, or why it seems to be such a Targaryen family matter. I might be wrong, but I think the prophecy being written in the runes on the Crown of Winter is definitely a possibility according to the text.

 

[PrettyPig]

1 hour ago, LordBlakeney said:

From what I can find the only mention of timing in regards to TPTWP comes from Melisandre, and in that passage she is conflating Azor Ahai and TPTWP.

"You are he who must stand against the Other. The one whose coming was prophesied five thousand years ago. The red comet was your herald. You are the prince that was promised, and if you fail the world fails with you." - Melisandre, to Stannis. Storm of Swords. Davos VI

Melisandre isn't the best expert on TPTWP or Azor Ahai. She's out doing her own thing, reading and misreading the signs. Plus many have theorized that Azor Ahai/TPTWP prophecies are not necessarily speaking of the same thing. Melisandre is just conflating the roles. 

Point being, there is no backstory for where the TPTWP prophecy comes from, or why it seems to be such a Targaryen family matter. I might be wrong, but I think the prophecy being written in the runes on the Crown of Winter is definitely a possibility according to the text.

 

You know, you may have something here.   Re: the 5000 year old prophecy, that coincides nicely with this:

Quote

The harpy of Ghis, Dany thought. Old Ghis had fallen five thousand years ago, if she remembered true; its legions shattered by the might of young Valyria, its brick walls pulled down, its streets and buildings turned to ash and cinder by dragonflame, its very fields sown with salt, sulfur, and skulls. The gods of Ghis were dead, and so too its people; these Astapori were mongrels, Ser Jorah said. Even the Ghiscari tongue was largely forgotten; the slave cities spoke the High Valyrian of their conquerors, or what they had made of it.

So the First Men most likely came from Essos (I think that's been determined, anyway - am admittedly deficient on my TWOIAF history), and clearly the (surviving) people of Old Ghis had reason to be pissed off at the Valyrian lords who scoured their great city with fire. 

Then we have this:

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"Your Grace," said Missandei, "Ghiscari inter their honored dead in crypts below their manses. If you would boil the bones clean and return them to their kin, it would be a kindness."

 

Sounds familiar, no?  

 

I believe it's also noted that sometime around the time of the Pact, the Men abandoned their gods and took up those of the Children - the Old Gods worshipped by Starks today.   Per the text quote above, those of the Ghiscari empire had their own gods that are now forgotten - I can't help but wonder if these Ghiscari gods and the original gods of the northerners/First Men are one and the same.

 

Point being, if the Starks/Kings of Winter as we know them are offshoots of the people of Old Ghis that migrated to north Westeros to escape the flame-worshippers of Old Valyria, then perhaps it was written into legend that a Great Other anti-fire god would one day arise out of that north to reclaim what was lost five thousand years ago - and the foil to this threat would be the Prince/Dragon/whatever that was Promised upon whom Mel is placing her bets.

[Frey family reunion]

1 hour ago, LordBlakeney said:

Doesn't it say in the books that the original crown of the Kings of Winter had runes on it? Wouldn't it be something if the prophecy about the Prince that was Promised came to the Targaryens from the Starks when they surrendered their crown the day Torrhen knelt?

Robb Stark's crown is described as "incised with the runes of the First Men" and it is said to closely resemble the ancient crown. Even if the Starks themselves could no longer translate the runes, Aegon could have given it to the Maesters to attempt a translation, or perhaps it was puzzled out in the hundreds of years since the Conquest by various members of the Targaryen family. Maybe it's what Rhaegar read one day and set in motion a lifelong obsession.

We're told messengers went back and forth all night between the hosts of King Torrhen and Aegon the Conqueror, negotiating the details. If the prophecy says something about dragons or dragon princes fighting the cold, I can see the North willing to compromise with Aegon and his dragons. 

I like the idea of the prophecy coming from the First Men. Aegon finding something about dragons on the ancient crown of a conquered king of a magical land is a solid basis for Targaryen obsession with the prophecy. Plus I'm partial to the idea that's been floated around that we'll see the original Crown of Winter before the books are done. What cooler way to reveal a prophecy about a fire and blood dragon prince that's only been hinted at in the text than to chisel it into bronze and iron, metals "dark and strong to fight against the cold."

And it fits our historical sensibilities - conquerors being hailed as gods and the fulfillment of prophecy? The Spanish used that to their advantage when they built their New World empire.

Considering that the Reeds swore an oath to the Stark kings which culminated in a vow to "ice and fire" it wouldn't surprise me if the runes on the Stark's crown has some connection to the Song of Ice and Fire, especially if that was a song passed down from the Children to the First Men.

I'm not so sure that the Starks knelt to the Targs because they saw them as a fulfillment to their prophecy, however.  I think there is a much simpler explanation, the Starks learned of the lesson of the Field of Fire, and the fate of Harrenhal.  They probably didn't want Winterfell to suffer a similar fate.

I think it was the Targaryen family that adopted the Song of Ice and Fire as a part of their own destiny, once they became "westernized" (or should I say Westerosized?) through their marriages to historic "First Men" families such as the Daynes and the Blackwoods.  

But the Targs and the Valyrian aren't the only ones associated with "Fire" magic.  We have Red Priests, we have the legend of the Grey King, we have an example of burned offering to the Weirwood at Whitetree north of the Wall, and the oath of the NIght's Watch hints at an association with fire:  "I am the fire that burns against the cold," ect.

[JNR]

2 hours ago, PrettyPig said:

So the First Men most likely came from Essos (I think that's been determined, anyway - am admittedly deficient on my TWOIAF history

It's certainly the established tale in the canon:

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some twelve thousand years ago, the First Men appeared from the east, crossing the Broken Arm of Dorne before it was broken

And re:

2 hours ago, PrettyPig said:

I believe it's also noted that sometime around the time of the Pact, the Men abandoned their gods and took up those of the Children - the Old Gods worshipped by Starks today.

You're right again, and it was heavily implied this happened because of the Pact:

Quote

The Pact began four thousand years of friendship between men and children. In time, the First Men even put aside the gods they had brought with them, and took up the worship of the secret gods of the wood.

Re:

2 hours ago, PrettyPig said:

if the Starks/Kings of Winter as we know them are offshoots of the people of Old Ghis that migrated to north Westeros to escape the flame-worshippers of Old Valyria

As so often the case, this seems to depend on whether one thinks the conventional timeline is basically valid, or is basically crap.

If it's valid, then the Starks and their crypts would already have been installed in Winterfell for several thousand years before Valyria emerged and warred with Ghis.  But if it's crap, then presumably anything goes.

[JNR]

1 hour ago, Frey family reunion said:

 I think there is a much simpler explanation, the Starks learned of the lesson of the Field of Fire, and the fate of Harrenhal.  They probably didn't want Winterfell to suffer a similar fate.

Seems overwhelmingly likely to me too.

Quote

It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations.

      -- JRR Tolkien

[PrettyPig]

46 minutes ago, JNR said:

As so often the case, this seems to depend on whether one thinks the conventional timeline is basically valid, or is basically crap.

Exactly.  Going back to the earlier heresy in which timelines were discussed, I think the consensus there is "The history is jacked" and "Who the hell knows".   So, I suppose if the arrival of the First Men was actually several thousand years later than assumed, or if the Starks specifically were among a 'second wave' of First Men fleeing from the collapsed empire of Ghis  - something that may also explain the contradiction of the First Men Barrow Kings ruling the North for some time rather than House Stark - then sure, it could work.

However, even if one were to take the Starks/KoW and runic crowns out of the equation, there's still the correlation between a 5000 y/o prophecy touted by Valyrians and those who worship the god of flame and the great Ghiscari Empire turned to ash 5000 years ago by Valyrians and their dragonflame.

Dany pushed her food about her plate. "And who would the gods of Ghis have me take as my king and consort?"

"Hizdahr zo Loraq," Galazza Galare said firmly.

Dany did not trouble to feign surprise. "Why Hizdahr? Skahaz is noble born as well."

"Skahaz is Kandaq, Hizdahr Loraq. Your Radiance will forgive me, but only one who is not herself Ghiscari would not understand the difference. Oft have I heard that yours is the blood of Aegon the Conqueror, Jaehaerys the Wise, and Daeron the Dragon. The noble Hizdahr is of the blood of Mazdhan the Magnificent, Hazrak the Handsome, and Zharaq the Liberator."

"His forebears are as dead as mine. Will Hizdahr raise their shades to defend Meereen against its enemies? I need a man with ships and swords. You offer me ancestors."

"We are an old people.   Ancestors are important to us.   Wed Hizdahr zo Loraq and make a son with him, a son whose father is the harpy, whose mother is the dragon. In him the prophecies shall be fulfilled, and your enemies will melt away like snow."