Jump to content

Heresy 201 and onward we go...


Black Crow

Recommended Posts

1 hour ago, Frey family reunion said:

And like Mormont, Mance also tried to convince Craster and his wives to leave their homes and join him.  It seems like the Raven is reminding Craster of this when Mormont makes his offer.

It's an odd thing for the bird to do.  It isn't just mimicry but something more I suspect.  I've been trying to pinpoint just when the bird becomes more vocal expanding on it's vocabulary rather than just repeating corn, corn, corn and if this marks the return of Benjen Stark.

17 minutes ago, Black Crow said:

We also have to think about the significance of those wings on the helmet. Do they denote old allegiances or are they trophies?

I've wondered if Mormont's Raven is the first bird to be used to spy on Mance.   

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

15 hours ago, LynnS said:

We also have to think about the significance of those wings on the helmet. Do they denote old allegiances or are they trophies?

I do like the idea that Benjen had his wings clipped and there is also the old proverb "dark wings, dark words" to consider.   We're told that it's a common phrase to expect bad tidings when the ravens show up.  It's used several times in the text for that reason although I wonder about the origin of the phrase and I don't think it has anything to do with ravens.

Quote

 

A Dance with Dragons - Daenerys IX

The tumult and the shouting died. Ten thousand voices stilled. Every eye turned skyward. A warm wind brushed Dany's cheeks, and above the beating of her heart she heard the sound of wings. Two spearmen dashed for shelter. The pitmaster froze where he stood. The boar went snuffling back to Barsena. Strong Belwas gave a moan, stumbled from his seat, and fell to his knees.

Above them all the dragon turned, dark against the sun. His scales were black, his eyes and horns and spinal plates blood red. Ever the largest of her three, in the wild Drogon had grown larger still. His wings stretched twenty feet from tip to tip, black as jet. He flapped them once as he swept back above the sands, and the sound was like a clap of thunder. The boar raised his head, snorting … and flame engulfed him, black fire shot with red. Dany felt the wash of heat thirty feet away. The beast's dying scream sounded almost human. Drogon landed on the carcass and sank his claws into the smoking flesh. As he began to feed, he made no distinction between Barsena and the boar.

A Dance with Dragons - Jon XIII

"As you say, m'lord, only … Clydas don't look his proper self … he's more white than pink, if you get my meaning … and he's shaking."

"Dark wings, dark words," muttered Tormund. "Isn't that what you kneelers say?"

"We say, Bleed a cold but feast a fever too," Jon told him. "We say, Never drink with Dornishmen when the moon is full. We say a lot of things."

A Clash of Kings - Catelyn I

The ancient crown of the Kings of Winter had been lost three centuries ago, yielded up to Aegon the Conqueror when Torrhen Stark knelt in submission. What Aegon had done with it no man could say. Lord Hoster's smith had done his work well, and Robb's crown looked much as the other was said to have looked in the tales told of the Stark kings of old; an open circlet of hammered bronze incised with the runes of the First Men, surmounted by nine black iron spikes wrought in the shape of longswords. Of gold and silver and gemstones, it had none; bronze and iron were the metals of winter, dark and strong to fight against the cold.

A Clash of Kings - Daenerys I

"Aegon's dragons were named for the gods of Old Valyria," she told her bloodriders one morning after a long night's journey. "Visenya's dragon was Vhagar, Rhaenys had Meraxes, and Aegon rode Balerion, the Black Dread. It was said that Vhagar's breath was so hot that it could melt a knight's armor and cook the man inside, that Meraxes swallowed horses whole, and Balerion . . . his fire was as black as his scales, his wings so vast that whole towns were swallowed up in their shadow when he passed overhead."

The Dothraki looked at her hatchlings uneasily. The largest of her three was shiny black, his scales slashed with streaks of vivid scarlet to match his wings and horns. "Khaleesi," Aggo murmured, "there sits Balerion, come again."

 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

18 hours ago, LynnS said:

I do like the idea that Benjen had his wings clipped and there is also the old proverb "dark wings, dark words" to consider.   We're told that it's a common phrase to expect bad tidings when the ravens show up.  It's used several times in the text for that reason although I wonder about the origin of the phrase and I don't think it has anything to do with ravens.

 

 

Ah, but that depends on whether the crows are just messengers - or players 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On ‎16‎/‎07‎/‎2017 at 4:09 PM, The Fattest Leech said:

 

This also goes back to that recent interview that made a few us turn into bobbleheads for a rough minute (:P) where George is talking fire wights regarding Beric and LSH. The last line in that statement of his he says something like "and it brings us back to that fire and ice issue."

I read this to mean there is more dichotomy in the story than either he realizes, or he admits to. Not a popular ideal among posters, I know.

And it still seems to me that the Jon interjection by the interviewer was just about the show, and George's statement at the end was referring to Jon as the ice in the elemental comparison. He may live a white hot existence in the future. 

Jon is ice and fire (perhaps if theorys come true) This is a battle between a life force driven by fire against a lifeforce driven by ice. His is the song of ice and fire. Everyone else is either one or the other. He is meant to bring balance into the world. On there own neither force is wholly bad or good, it depends on your viewpoint. mel is quite happy to burn people alive for her cause as are the icy folk happy to kill. Both sides can resurrect but one with fire one with ice. This seems to be the overarching theme of the books. Good and bad depends on viewpoint largely. Reality should lie somewhere in between. Being able to see both points of view. Jon who is one of the few who has witness the horrors of both sides, But the books as I believe GRRM said isn't going to go to the level of gods they are something in the background (if at all). Something upset the balance long ago, perhaps the invasion of the first men. One side got too powerful and had to be beaten. Then they are too weak. Valyria was destroyed by fire, westeros nearly by ice. Somebody worked out that to get water we cant have too much ice or fire. Hence the song. Rheagar knew the song. He was essentially good but happy to kill for aerys even if was planning to fix it all afterward. If there is balance in these primordial forces then everybody can get on with just ignoring them.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Greetings! And apologies for jumping in and ignoring ongoing discussions left and right.

I just had the thought that Jon (and maybe Dany if we consider her undead after the funeral pyre) had to die and be revived because the Night's King cannot be killed by a living man (cue Macbeth)? What do you think, is there any indication for this?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, alienarea said:

Greetings! And apologies for jumping in and ignoring ongoing discussions left and right.

I just had the thought that Jon (and maybe Dany if we consider her undead after the funeral pyre) had to die and be revived because the Night's King cannot be killed by a living man (cue Macbeth)? What do you think, is there any indication for this?

My sense of it is that Jon is being shaped into another version of the Night's King:
 

Quote

A Game of Thrones - Jon IX

Tyrion Lannister had claimed that most men would rather deny a hard truth than face it, but Jon was done with denials. He was who he was; Jon Snow, bastard and oathbreaker, motherless, friendless, and damned. For the rest of his life—however long that might be—he would be condemned to be an outsider, the silent man standing in the shadows who dares not speak his true name. Wherever he might go throughout the Seven Kingdoms, he would need to live a lie, lest every man's hand be raised against him. But it made no matter, so long as he lived long enough to take his place by his brother's side and help avenge his father.

He remembered Robb as he had last seen him, standing in the yard with snow melting in his auburn hair. Jon would have to come to him in secret, disguised. He tried to imagine the look on Robb's face when he revealed himself. His brother would shake his head and smile, and he'd say … he'd say …

 

I do think there is some purpose in giving Needle to Arya in the end.

Quote

A Feast for Crows - Arya II

"Death is not the worst thing," the kindly man replied. "It is His gift to us, an end to want and pain. On the day that we are born the Many-Faced God sends each of us a dark angel to walk through life beside us. When our sins and our sufferings grow too great to be borne, the angel takes us by the hand to lead us to the nightlands, where the stars burn ever bright. Those who come to drink from the black cup are looking for their angels. If they are afraid, the candles soothe them. When you smell our candles burning, what does it make you think of, my child?"

 

It seems likely to me that Jon will receive the true death at the hands of 'no man' of the Faceless lot or by someone who is 'no man'.  Either Arya or Brienne.

The question is whether Jon drank from the 'black cup' when he took the oath of the Night's Watch.
 

Quote

A Game of Thrones - Arya III

"My daughter often forgets her courtesies," Eddard Stark said with a faint smile that softened his words. "I beg your forgiveness, Yoren. Did my brother Benjen send you?"

"No one sent me, m'lord, saving old Mormont. I'm here to find men for the Wall, and when Robert next holds court, I'll bend the knee and cry our need, see if the king and his Hand have some scum in the dungeons they'd be well rid of. You might say as Benjen Stark is why we're talking, though. His blood ran black. Made him my brother as much as yours. It's for his sake I'm come. Rode hard, I did, near killed my horse the way I drove her, but I left the others well behind."

 

I'm always a bit suspect when 'no one' is identified in a passage.  "No One" being the god of many faces sending Yoren to save old Mormont?  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On ‎10‎/‎08‎/‎2017 at 3:24 PM, alienarea said:

Greetings! And apologies for jumping in and ignoring ongoing discussions left and right.

I just had the thought that Jon (and maybe Dany if we consider her undead after the funeral pyre) had to die and be revived because the Night's King cannot be killed by a living man (cue Macbeth)? What do you think, is there any indication for this?

Not in the text, and indeed GRRM's dismissal of his importance seems to go way beyond disassociating him from the demon king portrayed by the mummers

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This is a bit off topic ,but I wanted to know what you guys think.

I can't remember what book-SOW  or DWD where Melissandre tells Jon something like:

I can talk to kings long dead and babies not yet born.

Do you guys think she did either one at some point?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 hours ago, wolfmaid7 said:

I can't remember what book

ADWD:

Quote

"When I gaze into the flames, I can see through stone and earth, and find the truth within men's souls. I can speak to kings long dead and children not yet born, and watch the years and seasons flicker past, until the end of days."

And...

6 hours ago, wolfmaid7 said:

Do you guys think she did either one at some point?

Nope.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 hours ago, wolfmaid7 said:

This is a bit off topic ,but I wanted to know what you guys think.

I can't remember what book-SOW  or DWD where Melissandre tells Jon something like:

I can talk to kings long dead and babies not yet born.

Do you guys think she did either one at some point?

I have to go with BS on that one too.  She's implying that she can see past, present and future in the fire; which might be possible.  However, talking to long dead kings and unborn babies?  Unless she's talking about un-dead kings and Martin's version of the Neverborn;  it's sounds like snake oil to me.  If she could do those things, she would be next to omnipotent and you'd think she'd be a lot more certain about what she is doing. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, LynnS said:

I have to go with BS on that one too.  She's implying that she can see past, present and future in the fire; which might be possible.  However, talking to long dead kings and unborn babies?  Unless she's talking about un-dead kings and Martin's version of the Neverborn;  it's sounds like snake oil to me.  If she could do those things, she would be next to omnipotent and you'd think she'd be a lot more certain about what she is doing. 

She is succumbing to the "hrangan" mind as GRRM would say in other works. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Agree with all of the above - especially as we're also treated to the soliloquy about her "magic" powders running short.

In fact her problem is that she can't talk to dead kings and unborn children. That's not to say that she can't see them, she does have some powers, but seeing and figuring out what's going on and predicting what's going to happen next are very different.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

16 hours ago, LynnS said:

If she could do those things, she would be next to omnipotent and you'd think she'd be a lot more certain about what she is doing. 

Exactly right.  She would be able to ask anyone from any time period any question; this would make her a virtually perfect oracle and thus, incredibly powerful.

But she isn't perfect.  What she sees in the flames is accurate, but her comprehension of it is... not.  And when she feels doubt, she simply guesses some of the timeinstead of confirming the answer by asking someone in the future who would know for sure.

Quote

 

"Eastwatch?"

Was it? Melisandre had seen Eastwatch-by-the-Sea with King Stannis. That was where His Grace left Queen Selyse and their daughter Shireen when he assembled his knights for the march to Castle Black. The towers in her fire had been different, but that was oft the way with visions. "Yes. Eastwatch, my lord."

 

In this sense Melisandre is a special form of unreliable narrator and very useful for GRRM.

Other characters say things that might be completely wrong, but  Mel takes this premise a step further.  Even her thoughts are unreliable, and she is capable of fooling herself.  

And in fooling herself, she may fool the reader, too.  

So for instance, if a team of mummers were somehow able to read her thoughts and put on a play in Essos that was based on the second Long Night, Eastwatch might indeed take a powerful assault from a Popsicle army.  The mummer playwrights would have been fooled by Mel's bogus analysis.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I get and agree with all of you in some regard;I'll explain.But first,we all agree that Mel could be prone to misinterpretation.

She has even acknowledges that this is where the problem for Red Priests lay.

But what she mentioned isn't about interpretation.I believe it may be a factor after.

She is saying that she could do these things;talk to long dead kings and babies not yet born.

This isn't a confession that she has.

Mel however has never lied though ..Which is what she would be doing if she couldn't do this.

To quote you @JNR what she sees is accurate.Her interpretation may be wrong.

This of course doesn't preclude that she may have spoken to a King long dead or a child not yet born.What she got from such conversations may be wrong because she interpreted so.

It occurred to me something like this may have been the reason why she thinks so strongly about Stannis.This has been kind of a mystery.Why she thinks Stannis,Stannis is TPTWP.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, JNR said:

Exactly right.  She would be able to ask anyone from any time period any question; this would make her a virtually perfect oracle and thus, incredibly powerful.

But she isn't perfect.  What she sees in the flames is accurate, but her comprehension of it is... not.  And when she feels doubt, she simply guesses some of the timeinstead of confirming the answer by asking someone in the future who would know for sure.

In this sense Melisandre is a special form of unreliable narrator and very useful for GRRM.

Other characters say things that might be completely wrong, but  Mel takes this premise a step further.  Even her thoughts are unreliable, and she is capable of fooling herself.  

And in fooling herself, she may fool the reader, too.  

So for instance, if a team of mummers were somehow able to read her thoughts and put on a play in Essos that was based on the second Long Night, Eastwatch might indeed take a powerful assault from a Popsicle army.  The mummer playwrights would have been fooled by Mel's bogus analysis.

Preach.

Forgive the intrusion, but I've been hard on Mel lately, particularly in this thread. I'd really like to hear your thoughts on this theory, fellow Heretics (in particular @JNR and @wolfmaid7), when or if you have the time.

:cheers:

Regarding the veritas Wolfmaid is attempting to cast upon Melisandre of Asshai, I'd just like to point out that the first time we meet her on the page, she's pretending that Stannis is "the son of fire" and is giving him one of those cheap toy lightsabers (not even a licensed replica) at the world's most awkward birthday party.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

38 minutes ago, Voice said:

Preach.

Forgive the intrusion, but I've been hard on Mel lately, particularly in this thread. I'd really like to hear your thoughts on this theory, fellow Heretics (in particular @JNR and @wolfmaid7), when or if you have the time.

:cheers:

Regarding the veritas Wolfmaid is attempting to cast upon Melisandre of Asshai, I'd just like to point out that the first time we meet her on the page, she's pretending that Stannis is "the son of fire" and is giving him one of those cheap toy lightsabers (not even a licensed replica) at the world's most awkward birthday party.

Is she pretending though? Vs does she believe he is based on info she has and in her mind she's just helping him out.

Note, I am not arguing if he is (for the record I don't believe he is).The point of this is Melissandre' s motive to push that he is so hard.

She is putting herself in dangerous situations for a person she "knows" is a fraud? I don't buy that.She didn't just do this on a whim.Hence it comes back to what makes her believe it is Stannis?

Mel may be a lot of things but she likes being alive.And from her internal monologue she actually believes Stannis his the LOL's chosen.

So was it something she gleaned (correct or not) from her flames.Did she have a pow wow with a dead king or two.Also,its interesting she says babes  not yet born.That in itself is peculiar.

I don't think GRRM was being poetic.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 minutes ago, Black Crow said:

Mel is that most dangerous of believers who wants something to be true and is prepared to create a Manx cat to make it so.

That may be so but something must fuel that.She didn't just pull Stannis name out of a hat and say "thou art the man."

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, wolfmaid7 said:

It occurred to me something like this may have been the reason why she thinks so strongly about Stannis.This has been kind of a mystery.Why she thinks Stannis,Stannis is TPTWP.

According to Aemon, Melisandre has misread the signs whatever those might be:

Quote

A Feast for Crows - Samwell IV

"I will," Sam promised. "I will add my voice to yours, maester. We will both tell them, the two of us together."

"No," the old man said. "It must be you. Tell them. The prophecy . . . my brother's dream . . . Lady Melisandre has misread the signs. Stannis . . . Stannis has some of the dragon blood in him, yes. His brothers did as well. Rhaelle, Egg's little girl, she was how they came by it . . . their father's mother . . . she used to call me Uncle Maester when she was a little girl. I remembered that, so I allowed myself to hope . . . perhaps I wanted to . . . we all deceive ourselves, when we want to believe. Melisandre most of all, I think. The sword is wrong, she has to know that . . . light without heat . . . an empty glamor . . . the sword is wrong, and the false light can only lead us deeper into darkness, Sam. Daenerys is our hope. Tell them that, at the Citadel. Make them listen. They must send her a maester. Daenerys must be counseled, taught, protected. For all these years I've lingered, waiting, watching, and now that the day has dawned I am too old. I am dying, Sam." Tears ran from his blind white eyes at that admission. "Death should hold no fear for a man as old as me, but it does. Isn't that silly? It is always dark where I am, so why should I fear the darkness? Yet I cannot help but wonder what will follow, when the last warmth leaves my body. Will I feast forever in the Father's golden hall as the septons say? Will I talk with Egg again, find Dareon whole and happy, hear my sisters singing to their children? What if the horselords have the truth of it? Will I ride through the night sky forever on a stallion made of flame? Or must I return again to this vale of sorrow? Who can say, truly? Who has been beyond the wall of death to see? Only the wights, and we know what they are like. We know."

 

And so did Rhaegar and perhaps Aemon is misinterpreting as well.  The question is whether  Azor Ahai and the PWIP are the same prophecy or not.  I've come to think they are different.

Mayhaps Melisandre could have 'talked to long dead kings' etc would perhaps come to her in some version of a dream.  She avoids dreaming if possible, but does succumb to sleep. 

Quote

A Dance with Dragons - Melisandre I

"Almost dawn, my lady."

Dawn. Another day is given us, R'hllor be praised. The terrors of the night recede. Melisandre had spent the night in her chair by the fire, as she often did. With Stannis gone, her bed saw little use. She had no time for sleep, with the weight of the world upon her shoulders. And she feared to dream. Sleep is a little death, dreams the whisperings of the Other, who would drag us all into his eternal night. She would sooner sit bathed in the ruddy glow of her red lord's blessed flames, her cheeks flushed by the wash of heat as if by a lover's kisses. Some nights she drowsed, but never for more than an hour. One day, Melisandre prayed, she would not sleep at all. One day she would be free of dreams. Melony, she thought. Lot Seven.

 

 

Quote

A Dance with Dragons - Jon I

Jon did not deny it. "The Wall is no place for a woman."

"You are wrong. I have dreamed of your Wall, Jon Snow. Great was the lore that raised it, and great the spells locked beneath its ice. We walk beneath one of the hinges of the world." Melisandre gazed up at it, her breath a warm moist cloud in the air. "This is my place as it is yours, and soon enough you may have grave need of me. Do not refuse my friendship, Jon. I have seen you in the storm, hard-pressed, with enemies on every side. You have so many enemies. Shall I tell you their names?"

 

It seems she doesn't just rely on the flames... 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
×
×
  • Create New...