Jump to content

Mythical Astronomy covers Arya, Nissa Nissa as a COTF


LmL

Recommended Posts

11 hours ago, cgrav said:

Strong Belwas actually has a lot of moon symbolism. Read the chapter where Drogon comes into the fighting pit, it's got  a ton of Lightbringer stuff. Recall that Strong Belwas has a big, round belly with lots of scars, visually resembling the moon.

The first thing that happens is a deception: the poisoned locusts (sweet/sour or sweet/hot have been discussed as metaphors for deception)

The next is Barsena being gored by the boar and screaming loudly, echoing Nissa Nissa's cry. Her wound is from the thigh to the groin, highlighting the moon/maiden blood symbolism.

Belwas says Barsena's screame is causing his head and belly to hurt, and shortly after he starts retching. That's the metaphorical sickness and explosion of the moon.

At the same time, Drogon is descending into the pit, which is itself is a symbol of Lightbringer penetrating the moon. Dany then commandeers Drogon out of the pit, just as AA pulled the hot sword out of NN after stabbing her.

Of course his symbolism isn't exclusively lunar, because moon symbolism overlaps with NN and Weirwood symbolism. The weirwood represents the moment of lunar transformation/destruction, being white and wreathed in red leaves, so it makes perfect sense for moony Belwas to also carry some tree-ish symbols.

This scene is also a wonderful example of the recursive symbolism in the books. One event begets a further generation of the same. The moon is destroyed by a flying object, and then the moon itself becomes a bunch of flying objects that wreak havoc on the planet, and then the people on the planet turn the even into legend and symbolically reenact it, and eventually the longest recursion cycle comes back around and causes another disaster, etc. What we see in the fighting pit is a series of LB reenactments, each one pushing the metaphor further along.

The same concept shows up in Lord of the RingsNjal's Saga, and other Norse-based myth (plus plenty of other cultures' myths I'm sure): the same events keep happening because of some paradigm or ultimate problem that must be overcome. In LotR, it's the existence of Sauron and the Ring. In Njal's, it's the generational cycle of blood fueding. In the Norse myths, it's the conflict between giants and gods, which ends in Ragnarok. And Ice and Fire... well that's what we're trying to figure out in these discussions.

That's all very good analysis. Belwas seems to be yet another good example of someone combining tree and moon symbolism in the same scene. This is what I was just talking about - a configuration of the main events in which the Nissa Nissa character is not female. The thing is, it's one thing to break down these various permutations where gender is flipped around or whatever, but of course what we're all sort of trying to get at is the on-the-ground truth of the people who were involved in this original set of events. Maybe it's like the story of David and Bathsheeba, where King David had her husband placed in a dangerous part of the army so he would die and he could take his wife Bathsheeba as his own. Perhaps AA took NN from the green men. I think of Greenbeard taking Arya to Beric, but also implying the green to grey transformation himself. Perhaps @Crowfood's Daughter has insight here. 

And ditto on the recurring symbolism. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

10 hours ago, Jon Ice-Eyes said:

Nothing like randomly kicking everyone out to kill a sweet vibe. It was a great party when it was rocking, so I'll have a go at getting something started again. 

First, let me say that Nissa Nissa as a weirwood was pretty damn good. The next leap -- Nissa Nissa as a death goddess -- while logical in hindsight, blew my skull wide open. So thanks are in order. 

First, let me share my method. An excellent historian I had in grad school passed along some ancient wisdom. There are two types of history essay: cowshit and bullshit. Cowshit is too many examples without enough general conclusions, and bullshit is too many general conclusions without enough examples. This post is mostly bullshit. 

Weirwood trees, as we all know by now, are stand-ins for the World Tree. Yggdrasil. They have their roots underground and underwater -- the Underworld, where the dead are -- with trunks running through the world as we know it, and their leaves up in the sky -- the Heavens, where the stars and the gods live. That's a metaphor, kind of, but not really, but pretty much it is. 

I follow many others before me in theorizing that if you are going to climb the tree, you have to start at the bottom. The roots, the realm of the dead. You have to die. The exception being the Odin figure, who can hang sacrificially on the tree and exist astride all these realms. This is a special place for a magical person -- Odin is the god of magic -- and not available to just anyone.

Odin is also the god of life and death, the chooser. His Valkyries go and take the slain, but -- in many myths -- he says who lives and who dies. He is also the law-giver, which explains Arya as a Valkyrie: she enforces the most sacred and basic laws. (Shout out to the genius who made the Valkyrie connection.. was it @ravenous reader? @Pain killer Jane? @sweetsunray? Forgive me, I've forgotten.)

The tie-in to NN, where she goes into the weirwoods and becomes tied to their death-life spanning power, is really interesting. She becomes, in a sense, Hel, the overlord of the place of the dead. She's there, in the roots. As all the super fucked up imagery shows, she was a bloody sacrifice... but to my mind, she is pissed. Like Hel, she is an image of cruel and unfeeling vengeance. 

That's what I am seeing, which is all pretty much there in the podcast. But this is all just an aspect of the weird and dark cosmology that the Norse myth has to offer. Hel isn't exactly some sort of unnatural part of things... she's got a real and important part in the underworld. She's cold and sometimes malevolent, but fits in the structure in her way.

Compare to Arya, the Faceless Men, and the Others -- all of whom share a bunch of imagery. As more perspicacious readers than I point out! My conclusion is simply that these are forces of death that are out to drag the deserving screaming into the underworld. In a sense, they are righting the imbalance. Which has implications for the fiery dragon and fire-wight side of the equation.

That's a good start. Am I on to something? Or maybe just taking a tiny step beyond what was in the essay already? I dunno! 

Yeah you're on the write track I think. NN taking up residence in the wwnet is super important. She raises the dead NW back to green zombie life, that much seems clear. I thought maybe she was making the Others too, but I'm not so sure of that. I am trying to discern what the relationship between undead NN in the tree and the Nights Queen might be. NQ figures show some of the same signs of being affiliated with weirwoods that NN does. 

In general, what I am seeing is that green men turn into both undead NW (AA reborn people) and Others. I think that the dead summer king might be aligned with the Others while the dead winter king is aligned with the NW. But of course I need to get into the Others full tilt to figure that out.... which us what I am doing after the next Weirwood Goddess episode ( which will be Catwoman).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, LmL said:

The other thing to keep in mind is that we could be dealing with the same story shown different ways. In some configurations of the story, it could be brothers fighting each other, more like the winter and summer King, wall in a different permutation, it's a man killing his wife. It could all be the same thing, or they could be different parts of a sequence.

 

I am on team sequence, but I am conscious that nearly every example I have to support that could be read another way. To see it, you have to look at character arcs in sequence.  I think he last two of Bran's retrograde vision spells it out.  Someone is bled out in front of the tree.  Then later, a woman comes and prays, presumably to the sacrifice as he is the one in there, for avenging moon meteor children like Arya in some sort of "deal with the devil" as I am sure greenseers do not hand out favors for free.  

 

I think Littlefinger's purpose in the story is to guide us along the path of that sacrifice.  He gets bled in a fight over a woman on the water stair.  Then later Lysa makes a deal with the devil and asks him for help to protect Robert from her husband's attempts to give him to Stannis.  He helps her, then later kills her and claims Robert for himself to rule the Vale.  Of course there is Robert's Rebellion where a fight over who claims a highborn bastard is preceded by two men fighting over the bastard's mother in shallow water, so there seems to be a sequence to me.  

 

I don't think anything I have written yet disagrees with you, either.  In fact I think that Howland plays the role of the female when he asks the old gods for help and gets the knight of the laughing tree, before later having to offer his firstborn to the old gods.  Offering up a son for help is what the woman does.  I think he plays the female role again when he serves as tiebreaker in Arthur and Ned's fight.  That would not seem to make sense except that as a crannogman he has CotF symbolism and that is what you say Nissa Nissa.  I am on pace to have it done around the time Winds comes out.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

11 hours ago, LmL said:

Yeah you're on the write track I think. NN taking up residence in the wwnet is super important. She raises the dead NW back to green zombie life, that much seems clear. I thought maybe she was making the Others too, but I'm not so sure of that. I am trying to discern what the relationship between undead NN in the tree and the Nights Queen might be. NQ figures show some of the same signs of being affiliated with weirwoods that NN does. 

In general, what I am seeing is that green men turn into both undead NW (AA reborn people) and Others. I think that the dead summer king might be aligned with the Others while the dead winter king is aligned with the NW. But of course I need to get into the Others full tilt to figure that out.... which us what I am doing after the next Weirwood Goddess episode ( which will be Catwoman).

The Others are going to be a fun ride! As a bullshitter, I rely on you and our fellow partygoers for the deep dive textual clues to direct me, and I'm a little stymied at present. I have a few ideas...

Following the Miasma essay you linked to at the Last Hearth: the Others as an immune response. Maybe they were once a regular immune response, but they've been thrown off-kilter. I mean, they're even white, like white blood cells! I see them as the weirwoods' immune system gone haywire, an allergic response to the black meteor/fire moon intrusion. That shit is clearly toxic (compare to pollution IRL) and has upset the regular life-death balance. The Others have gone mad trying to excise the foreign matter, and are now attacking the body as well. See also the FM possibly overthrowing the Valyrian Empire. I compare current Valyria to a scar or pus-weeping wound. 

What I can't square is the undead wights. An army of revived corpses doesn't fit my theory too well, nor do the NW and other 'good guys' who have rampant undead symbolism. Greenseer resurrection seems to be a thing, but it is a real puzzle. I'm sure Nissa Nissa is the key here... somehow.

And I am all with you on the undead summer and undead winter symbolism seeming to be separate and opposing. I think the colours allude to it, but it's a tough nut to crack.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

One of those quotes I think about is Dany dreaming of roasting Robert's troops at the Trident, because they are "armored in ice." 

As for the wights, it's easy to see how they fit into the fertility god myth - they represent a halting of the cycle of life and death, just as the long night represents a halting of the cycle of Night and Day and of the seasons. When night time and winter got stuck in the on position, we also got undead corpses everywhere. However I'm not really sure how the whole thing got started in terms of the others or the night King resurrecting dead bodies. I've sometimes wondered if it's not being done by any person or entity, but by a big black meteor up in the north which somehow reanimates the dead, or some other regional magical effect. Thats a real mystery there. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

17 hours ago, Unchained said:

 

I am on team sequence, but I am conscious that nearly every example I have to support that could be read another way. To see it, you have to look at character arcs in sequence.  I think he last two of Bran's retrograde vision spells it out.  Someone is bled out in front of the tree.  Then later, a woman comes and prays, presumably to the sacrifice as he is the one in there, for avenging moon meteor children like Arya in some sort of "deal with the devil" as I am sure greenseers do not hand out favors for free.  

 

I think Littlefinger's purpose in the story is to guide us along the path of that sacrifice.  He gets bled in a fight over a woman on the water stair.  Then later Lysa makes a deal with the devil and asks him for help to protect Robert from her husband's attempts to give him to Stannis.  He helps her, then later kills her and claims Robert for himself to rule the Vale.  Of course there is Robert's Rebellion where a fight over who claims a highborn bastard is preceded by two men fighting over the bastard's mother in shallow water, so there seems to be a sequence to me.  

 

I don't think anything I have written yet disagrees with you, either.  In fact I think that Howland plays the role of the female when he asks the old gods for help and gets the knight of the laughing tree, before later having to offer his firstborn to the old gods.  Offering up a son for help is what the woman does.  I think he plays the female role again when he serves as tiebreaker in Arthur and Ned's fight.  That would not seem to make sense except that as a crannogman he has CotF symbolism and that is what you say Nissa Nissa.  I am on pace to have it done around the time Winds comes out.  

I guffawed out loud (GOL) at that last bit. Get it in gear, man! I'll have to keep the offering of a child idea in my head. Clearly this could relate to the Others, don't you think, given Craster's offerings? 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, LmL said:

I guffawed out loud (GOL) at that last bit. Get it in gear, man! I'll have to keep the offering of a child idea in my head. Clearly this could relate to the Others, don't you think, given Craster's offerings? 

Yep, have you noticed the similarity in the names Craster and Caster?  We'll see if I can prove it, but I suspect Lann to be a child that was offered up or was meant to be offered up to "Caster" or "Garth" or whatever you want to call him.  Caster's son Corlos was a huntsman who spared the lion cubs, which I think means baby Lann, just how another huntsman Sam spares one of Caster's sons.  From Littlefinger we know that people who are spared when young sometimes come back and steal castles.  His strategy of stealing the Eryie is exactly what Lann uses to take the Rock, tricks, impregnating the women of the castle, and controlling the heir which is really his son.  I am getting to be pretty certain that the Others are like a sun god Garth King after Lann steals their fire to empower his sunlight drinking meteor children turning the solar Garth people into white winter suns.  All those white swords at the Eryie you pointed out once show up after Littlefinger usurps it.  

 

 

 

Is Wenda the white Fawn one of the weirwood women you have coming up?  Being a fawn would seem to make her a child of the forest.  Arya thinks about becoming an outlaw like her.  I want to write about the Kingswood brotherhood, but I can't figure out where she fits in even though she must.  Apart from being really funny what does it mean to brand your sign on someone's ass? That's really about all we know about her.  I can't figure out her significance.  Maybe it is marking someone for death later delivered by Lady Stoneheart?  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

13 hours ago, LmL said:

One of those quotes I think about is Dany dreaming of roasting Robert's troops at the Trident, because they are "armored in ice." 

As for the wights, it's easy to see how they fit into the fertility god myth - they represent a halting of the cycle of life and death, just as the long night represents a halting of the cycle of Night and Day and of the seasons. When night time and winter got stuck in the on position, we also got undead corpses everywhere. However I'm not really sure how the whole thing got started in terms of the others or the night King resurrecting dead bodies. I've sometimes wondered if it's not being done by any person or entity, but by a big black meteor up in the north which somehow reanimates the dead, or some other regional magical effect. Thats a real mystery there. 

I am a little worried about this -- maybe worried isn't the right word, but it's been playing on my mind a lot -- since your Nissa Nissa podcasts. It seemed to me that her side of the equation was not... entirely unnatural.

Then there's this: 

Quote

A vengeful death goddess with a flaming sword, now we’re talking!

This set off a lot of bells for me. The faming sword represents (biblically) nemesis, as in the dire consequence of hubris. Or more precisely, it blocks humanity from gaining godlike power by getting at the tree of life. Death stops you from living forever like a god. The flaming sword here is a boundary enforcer. 

So... what does that mean for Lightbringer? We all envision Lightbringer as the weapon which stops the Others and brings back the cycle of day and night. But it's pretty clear that dragons are the true hubris, the centre of the cycle-breaking Blood Betrayal. Does that make Lightbringer a dragon-slayer? 

Maybe the pair of swords you spotted so long ago, Ice and Dawn, are BOTH Lightbringer? White with blue flame to stop dragons, black with red flame to stop Others? Two moons, two swords, two Azor Ahais Reborn? 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Jon Ice-Eyes said:

I am a little worried about this -- maybe worried isn't the right word, but it's been playing on my mind a lot -- since your Nissa Nissa podcasts. It seemed to me that her side of the equation was not... entirely unnatural.

Then there's this: 

This set off a lot of bells for me. The faming sword represents (biblically) nemesis, as in the dire consequence of hubris. Or more precisely, it blocks humanity from gaining godlike power by getting at the tree of life. Death stops you from living forever like a god. The flaming sword here is a boundary enforcer. 

So... what does that mean for Lightbringer? We all envision Lightbringer as the weapon which stops the Others and brings back the cycle of day and night. But it's pretty clear that dragons are the true hubris, the centre of the cycle-breaking Blood Betrayal. Does that make Lightbringer a dragon-slayer? 

Maybe the pair of swords you spotted so long ago, Ice and Dawn, are BOTH Lightbringer? White with blue flame to stop dragons, black with red flame to stop Others? Two moons, two swords, two Azor Ahais Reborn? 

Basically, yes. I think so. I have been thinking of AA's theoretical black meteor sword and Dawn (original Ice) as a pair of Lightbringer swords for a long time now, and nothing has shaken that idea.  I have wondered before if Dawn might not be a dragon killer, absolutely.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

10 hours ago, Unchained said:

Yep, have you noticed the similarity in the names Craster and Caster?  We'll see if I can prove it, but I suspect Lann to be a child that was offered up or was meant to be offered up to "Caster" or "Garth" or whatever you want to call him.  Caster's son Corlos was a huntsman who spared the lion cubs, which I think means baby Lann, just how another huntsman Sam spares one of Caster's sons.  From Littlefinger we know that people who are spared when young sometimes come back and steal castles.  His strategy of stealing the Eryie is exactly what Lann uses to take the Rock, tricks, impregnating the women of the castle, and controlling the heir which is really his son.  I am getting to be pretty certain that the Others are like a sun god Garth King after Lann steals their fire to empower his sunlight drinking meteor children turning the solar Garth people into white winter suns.  All those white swords at the Eryie you pointed out once show up after Littlefinger usurps it.  

Yes I think we've seen this suggestion that green summer Garth turns to a winter sun white Other figure a few times now - it's probably most notable in Jaime. And yes I've noticed Craster and Casterly, but haven't made any sense of it. 

10 hours ago, Unchained said:

 

 

Is Wenda the white Fawn one of the weirwood women you have coming up?  Being a fawn would seem to make her a child of the forest.  Arya thinks about becoming an outlaw like her.  I want to write about the Kingswood brotherhood, but I can't figure out where she fits in even though she must.  Apart from being really funny what does it mean to brand your sign on someone's ass? That's really about all we know about her.  I can't figure out her significance.  Maybe it is marking someone for death later delivered by Lady Stoneheart?  

That is a great catch, I would have put that in this current episode had I known Arya compared herself to her. A white fawn is a white moon, it seems, and that reminds me of the house Robert defeated that has a sigil of two white fawns. I forget the name of the House. 

I'll see if I can wedge Wanda in somewhere in this episode. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, LmL said:

That is a great catch, I would have put that in this current episode had I known Arya compared herself to her. A white fawn is a white moon, it seems, and that reminds me of the house Robert defeated that has a sigil of two white fawns. I forget the name of the House. 

 

Here's the quote

 

Quote

Sometimes she thought she might go back to Sharna's inn, if the floods hadn't washed it away. She could stay with Hot Pie, or maybe Lord Beric would find her there. Anguy would teach her to use a bow, and she could ride with Gendry and be an outlaw, like Wenda the White Fawn in the songs

 

Looks like Wenda is a song too like Arya and Jenny.  

The House is House Cafferen.  Robert beats them, then they join him and their lord is killed by Randyl Tarly who sends his head to Aerys.  I am going to add huntsman Randyl sending his lord a white hart to the list of things that gives me a strong Snow White vibe.  That list is several items long now.   

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 hours ago, LmL said:

Basically, yes. I think so. I have been thinking of AA's theoretical black meteor sword and Dawn (original Ice) as a pair of Lightbringer swords for a long time now, and nothing has shaken that idea.  I have wondered before if Dawn might not be a dragon killer, absolutely.

I know! I just never really saw a place for your idea in the whole structure of things. This train of thought kind of snapped it into place for me. 

It got me thinking about the families who wield them, and how they're out of place in their environments. The Daynes are all ice symbolism way down south, and the Starks in their hot castle with fiery wolf blood in the north. Is it just that The George loves to mess around with opposites? The little dots in the yin-yang? I feel like there's more to it than that.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Cowboy Dan just posted this quote from AGOT that lines up hard with fire moon meteors as an infection, with the weirwoods attempting an immune response: 

Quote

...[H]e began to scrape away the black leaves and dried blue mud from Drogo's chest... Ser Jorah broke the dry mud with his knife, pried the chunks from the flesh, peeled off the leaves one by one. A foul, sweet smell rose from the wound, so thick it almost choked her. The leaves were crusted with blood and pus, Drogo's breast black and glistening with corruption.
...
Khal Drogo thrashed, fighting some unseen enemy. Black blood ran slow and thick from his open wound. -Daenerys VIII, AGOT

Black blood! Love it! 

Probably you already have this lined up to talk about down the road. But it was too juicy to go unmentioned. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Jon Ice-Eyes said:

@Cowboy Dan just posted this quote from AGOT that lines up hard with fire moon meteors as an infection, with the weirwoods attempting an immune response: 

Quote

...[H]e began to scrape away the black leaves and dried blue mud from Drogo's chest... Ser Jorah broke the dry mud with his knife, pried the chunks from the flesh, peeled off the leaves one by one. A foul, sweet smell rose from the wound, so thick it almost choked her. The leaves were crusted with blood and pus, Drogo's breast black and glistening with corruption.
...
Khal Drogo thrashed, fighting some unseen enemy. Black blood ran slow and thick from his open wound. -Daenerys VIII, AGOT

Black blood! Love it! 

Probably you already have this lined up to talk about down the road. But it was too juicy to go unmentioned

Nice catch, @Cowboy Dan and @Jon Ice-Eyes!  I think @Pain killer Jane and I may have mentioned the symbolism of the pus to @LmL when we were presenting our theory of the Others as 'back door' secretions/excretions of the weirwoods (which LmL found mildly disgusting, so the thesis kind of withered there, but there was definitely something to it, LOL)!

Note how the mud poultice on Drogo's chest is 'blue' from which the 'sweet smell rose' -- so, putting it together, we have a 'blue sweet-smelling rose' growing from a chest 'wall'!!!  Additionally, when Jorah breaks through the scab, it's like poking a 'chink' in a wall...  It's also clearly a classic Nissa Nissa wound, given that it's over Drogo's heart and inflicted by his spouse Dany, albeit indirectly.  He also bared his chest to her sword without a hilt (i.e. Mirri's sorcery) naively and willingly, just like NN.  So now look at this quote again and tell me what you see:

Quote

. . . . mother of dragons, slayer of lies . . . Her silver was trotting through the grass, to a darkling stream beneath a sea of stars. A corpse stood at the prow of a ship, eyes bright in his dead face, grey lips smiling sadly. A blue flower grew from a chink in a wall of ice, and filled the air with sweetness. . . . mother of dragons, bride of fire . . .

(ACOK - Daenerys IV)

As @Lollygag has argued, this 'sweetness' is tied to the smell of corruption.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Jon Ice-Eyes 

The icy Dayne and fiery Stark symbolism makes sense when you consider the season cycles they represent (among the many meanings we can construe). It's tricky because so many symbols represent processes rather than things/ideas.

Dawn, Starfall, and The Sword of the Morning don't just represent the idea of light and the summer season, but the actual change from winter to summer. That is, the winter solstice and symbolic rebirth of the sun. Dawn is not the day, and the solstice is not the summer. It's still mostly dark at dawn and very cold on the winter solstice. The winter solstice is also the sun's southernmost point on the horizon, while the summer solstice is the northernmost.

The Daynes thus are the symbolic gatekeepers of summer. And that makes perfect sense when we consider the physical resemblance between Daynes and Targs, their possible shared heritage, and the fact that the Sword of the Morning was a stalwart guard of solar/summer figures Rhaegar and Jon.

In this role we should expect the Daynes to be cold, because they symbolically slay the night/winter at its darkest and coldest. And the Stark/Ice counterpart has fire because the Summer is slain at its hottest. Fittingly, Ice is a stand-in for the aspect of Lightbringer that steals life and warmth with its darkness.

And to bring in book action... if my recent thoughts on the ToJ events are true, then Dayne was indeed acting to secure the ascent of Rhaegar. The death of the Sword of the Morning by Ned, then, shows us the breaking, or at least changing, of the seasons. The symbol of winter's arrival slew the herald of summer, preventing the change of seasons. No coincidence that Rhaegar's ascension plot was hatched in the year of the false spring. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@ravenous reader

Yeah, blue here does seem to be an indicator of infection, often fatal. It even works for Lyanna. I see it as the afflicted white. It often seems to arise when ice and fire meet. See Jon, fire moon meteors way up north, Shade of Evening trees. It's usually a bad mix; this has me a little perplexed with Lyanna and Jon being blue roses... 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On ‎02‎/‎08‎/‎2017 at 0:32 PM, LmL said:

I probably don’t even have to remind you that Arya is called “skinny squirrel” several times – three to be exact, and all by a person named Greenbeard, whom we’ll talk about more in a little bit.

Bran is called a that by his father too. We know Brans has obvious connections to COTF, so there is a link between squirrel and COTF.

AGOT Bran II

As angry as he was, his father could not help but laugh. “You’re not my son,” he told Bran when they fetched him down, “you’re a squirrel. So be it. If you must climb, then climb, but try not to let your mother see you.”

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hey there friends. I just want to let everyone know that I have officially about had it with this forum. Seriously. I love many of you to death, but between the years-long struggle to just make this forum functional (I mean, FFS) and the degradation of the content and participants, the whining about GRRM not writing fast enough or about him having the f---ing temerity to enjoy his success... is just too much for me. In my opinion, this thing has become a walking corpse, a lifeless facsimile of what it once was, and I think it's time to acknowledge that. I was here when it was fun; and before the update, when the crashing was a little less bad, we all tolerated it because we loved the community. We all keep coming here for one reason and one reason only: each other. But lately it just feels too much like fighting against the forum to communicate. I know many of you do the same thing I do - we type any response longer than a paragraph in a separate window for fear of the forum eating it. It's just sad - I've never known another web forum so unstable, and this is a years long problem. It's just silly at this point. I have to imagine that is why most of the friends I used to have here don't come here anymore.

But more than that, I just feel the community of good people here has slowly dwindled, and now it's almost as cynical and snarky as reddit. The recent thread about boycotting Fire and Blood until George releases TWOW is the last straw for me. How this thread was not taken down by now, I have no idea. So now the ASOIAF fan forum is the place to bitch about GRRM? Seriously? Count me out. I don't have even enough f-bombs for that, and I am not usually one to run short on f-bombs. 

So, with great sadness but firm conviction I must say that I will no longer be posting my essays here. You all know where to find me: lucifermeanslightbringer.com. Follow the blog to get updates on new essays, which come out once a month pretty much.

I'm on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/lucifermeanslightbringer
I'm on itunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/mythical-astronomy-ice-fire/id1125579173
I'm on facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lucifermeanslightbringer/
and I'm on twitter now, which, by the way, is where a lot of the best parts of the fandom communicate: https://twitter.com/thedragonLML

If you've ever been my friend or chat buddy or anything like that, if you've ever enjoyed my threads, then by all means, hit me up on twitter to chat, that's the easiest way. You can always comment on my essays to discuss, and I also post all my podcasts on youtube, where you can also comment and discus. I'm a lot quicker to answer there than here anyway, even before now. 

I'm very grateful for all of you - though most of you have already left the forum anyway. But if you're reading this and we're cool, then hugs and kisses and dragonfire. Come find me at one of those places, because I won't be here. 

Kirk out. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Oh and btw if anyone writes something they would like me to take a look at, I am always down. Just hit me up on Twitter or elsewhere and I will be happy to read. Cheers. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

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

×
×
  • Create New...