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The Wall, Melisandre, and Orell's Eagle


Voice

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If you're familiar with my posts regarding the Wall, you know that I believe it blocks wargs, rather than Others and ice spiders. If anything, the Wall should feel as comfortable to the Others as your favorite chair feels to you. It's ice, they're ice, spiders climb walls and Others walk lightly upon the snow (aka, ice).

We might see the Wall stop an Other on some long night, but I won't be holding my frosty breath until my eyes turn blue. In the course of five novels, we've seen the Wall block one thing and one thing only: the warg-bond.


A Storm of Swords - Jon XII

Quote

    I would need to steal her if I wanted her love, but she might give me children. I might someday hold a son of my own blood in my arms. A son was something Jon Snow had never dared dream of, since he decided to live his life on the Wall. I could name him Robb. Val would want to keep her sister's son, but we could foster him at Winterfell, and Gilly's boy as well. Sam would never need to tell his lie. We'd find a place for Gilly too, and Sam could come visit her once a year or so. Mance's son and Craster's would grow up brothers, as I once did with Robb.
    He wanted it, Jon knew then. He wanted it as much as he had ever wanted anything. I have always wanted it, he thought, guiltily. May the gods forgive me. It was a hunger inside him, sharp as a dragonglass blade. A hunger . . . he could feel it. It was food he needed, prey, a red deer that stank of fear or a great elk proud and defiant. He needed to kill and fill his belly with fresh meat and hot dark blood. His mouth began to water with the thought.
    It was a long moment before he understood what was happening. When he did, he bolted to his feet. "Ghost?" He turned toward the wood, and there he came, padding silently out of the green dusk, the breath coming warm and white from his open jaws. "Ghost!" he shouted, and the direwolf broke into a run. He was leaner than he had been, but bigger as well, and the only sound he made was the soft crunch of dead leaves beneath his paws. When he reached Jon he leapt, and they wrestled amidst brown grass and long shadows as the stars came out above them. "Gods, wolf, where have you been?" Jon said when Ghost stopped worrying at his forearm. "I thought you'd died on me, like Robb and Ygritte and all the rest. I've had no sense of you, not since I climbed the Wall, not even in dreams." The direwolf had no answer, but he licked Jon's face with a tongue like a wet rasp, and his eyes caught the last light and shone like two great red suns.
    Red eyes, Jon realized, but not like Melisandre's. He had a weirwood's eyes. Red eyes, red mouth, white fur. Blood and bone, like a heart tree. He belongs to the old gods, this one. And he alone of all the direwolves was white. Six pups they'd found in the late summer snows, him and Robb; five that were grey and black and brown, for the five Starks, and one white, as white as Snow.
    He had his answer then.


With the Wall between, Jon could not sense Ghost. Just before their reunion, Jon had gone to the north side of the Wall to watch Mel's nightfire ritual. [The passage above, quite literally, explains in great detail how the Wall separated Jon from his intimate connection to the Old Gods, but I digress...]

If my interpretation is accurate, and the First Men have been duped into protecting an artifact of their own oppression for 8,000 years, the implications are many. I've thumped my BtB=NK bible enough so I won't do so again here (at least not yet LOL). This post will focus on a more practical implication of my hypothesis.

Ladies and Gents, it's time to revisit the mysterious combustion of Orell's Varamyr's Eagle...

Read the full theory: http://www.thelasthearth.com/thread/1556/wall-melisandre-orells-eagle

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Hmmm. I will go read your last linked to theory about the eagle and Mel, but it seems this is the first piece of evidence shown that Mel the charlatan is having a power increase at the wall.  

Im always up for some good Mel "Morgan full of Magic" discussion.

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My own pet theory about the loss of connection between Jon and Ghost during that period is that Ygritte is the White Witch and Ghost is Aslan. Ghost "died" when Ygritte killed the silent man at the ruined inn near the Queenscrown. I hadn't thought about it, but maybe Melisandre's nightfire ritual is what "revived" Ghost, enabling him to reunite with Jon.

But you have refrained from bible thumping, so I should, too. ;)

Edit: You said

Good thing there's that special Weirwood Gate beneath the Nightfort. Without that, there would be no way for wargs and skinchangers to travel north and south.

But don't we see Borroq and his boar come through the regular tunnel at Castle Black? Or is the Weirwood Black Gate necessary only if the skinchanger is inhabiting the body of his/her companion animal at the time the crossing is made?

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2 hours ago, Voice said:

Ok. Read it and I can't say I disagree with too much, maybe more of a "see some things differently " on a few small points. I need to reread and think on this a little (my typical method). The first thing I can agree to easily is the dichotomy of the elements, and Mel is there with fire... and this might not be a good thing in the end. 

38 minutes ago, Seams said:

My own pet theory about the loss of connection between Jon and Ghost during that period is that Ygritte is the White Witch and Ghost is Aslan. Ghost "died" when Ygritte killed the silent man at the ruined inn near the Queenscrown. I hadn't thought about it, but maybe Melisandre's nightfire ritual is what "revived" Ghost, enabling him to reunite with Jon.

But you have refrained from bible thumping, so I should, too. ;)

Interesting.

38 minutes ago, Seams said:

Edit: You said

 

But don't we see Borroq and his boar come through the regular tunnel at Castle Black? Or is the Weirwood Black Gate necessary only if the skinchanger is inhabiting the body of his/her companion animal at the time the crossing is made?

Good questions. 

Yes, Borroq (and may another skinchanger or two?) do come through the tunnel at Castle Black. This is when Borroq's boat does his grunting and digging into the ground as if he bowing to Jon, and Borroq calls Jon "brother". 

Hmmm. I need to think on this, but that will be tomorrow as I am working through my own writing work at the moment. 

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1 hour ago, The Fattest Leech said:

Hmmm. I will go read your last linked to theory about the eagle and Mel, but it seems this is the first piece of evidence shown that Mel the charlatan is having a power increase at the wall.  

Im always up for some good Mel "Morgan full of Magic" discussion.

My argument is quite not the latter. ;)

 

58 minutes ago, The Fattest Leech said:

Haha.  :lol:

I just got to this part: "Mel is Fire's #1 Fan,"

:D

 

55 minutes ago, Seams said:

My own pet theory about the loss of connection between Jon and Ghost during that period is that Ygritte is the White Witch and Ghost is Aslan. Ghost "died" when Ygritte killed the silent man at the ruined inn near the Queenscrown. I hadn't thought about it, but maybe Melisandre's nightfire ritual is what "revived" Ghost, enabling him to reunite with Jon.

But you have refrained from bible thumping, so I should, too. ;)

This theory isn't incompatible with an Aslan angle, but I do view it differently.

I view the Wall as an electromagnetic force that severs the warg-bond. When trespassing, in a changed-skin, you will experience Varamyr's EMP.

That being said, I am very much on board with the idea that the "realms of men" is a very clearly delineated space, and that north of the Wall is a very different realm. Narnia, Oz, through the looking-glass, the Underworld...etc.

 

Quote

Edit: You said

 

But don't we see Borroq and his boar come through the regular tunnel at Castle Black? Or is the Weirwood Black Gate necessary only if the skinchanger is inhabiting the body of his/her companion animal at the time the crossing is made?

The weirwood Gate was once the only gate, so I was speaking of it in that way. Granted, such a treatment is dated, and now, quite archaic, but nonetheless powerful in my opinion.

Using one of the tunnel gates, added in more recent periods, is no different (imo) than flying over the Wall. Such trespasses are, well, trespassing. And the trespasser did not request permission to cross. (See Samwel's request at the Black Gate)

Thus, in foregoing that protocol, I believe that Borroq would have been inhabiting some nice fresh strips of bacon had he attempted to cross Castle Black's gate while within his boar.

 

What makes the weirwood gate beneath the Nightfort necessary, imo, is that it was and is the only way to truly travel, trade, and/or make sacrifices between the realms. Thus, the warden of the Black Gate is the gatekeeper of the realms of men, as well as the gatekeeper of the realms of ghouls.

Any beast can lumber through the tunnel at Castle Black, just as any bird can fly over the Wall. But in order to enter the gate of yore, one must be granted permission from the Wall itself.

Remember Bloodraven's quote? "For men, time is a river..." The trees are not moved by it, but men are.

The Wall has frozen that river. And again, we find a tree that was not moved by it. To traverse the weir is to be accepted by the Old Gods in a way that Orell's Eagle was not.

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10 minutes ago, Voice said:

My argument is quite not the latter. ;)

I am seeing that now :blink:

It seems that you are saying that Mel is taking credit, once again and again, for something she did not cause to happen as a result of her magics... but rather the fact that someone (Varamyr) was actively skinchanging an animal, using that magic, as they tried to cross the wall is what caused the eagle to burn.

I gotta say, I never trust Mel, and this fits with her... but I have to think on this a little more when I am not wrapped up in my own story that is not related to this one. 

I guess my only hang up at the moment, which you may have an answer to, is that the warg bond and tele-connection to each other seems automatic, even if one is not detecting the other. The brain is still scanning for that magic connection. Would this not count? 

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21 minutes ago, The Fattest Leech said:

I am seeing that now :blink:

It seems that you are saying that Mel is taking credit, once again and again, for something she did not cause to happen as a result of her magics... but rather the fact that someone (Varamyr) was actively skinchanging an animal, using that magic, as they tried to cross the wall is what caused the eagle to burn.

I gotta say, I never trust Mel, and this fits with her... but I have to think on this a little more when I am not wrapped up in my own story that is not related to this one. 

I guess my only hang up at the moment, which you may have an answer to, is that the warg bond and tele-connection to each other seems automatic, even if one is not detecting the other. The brain is still scanning for that magic connection. Would this not count? 

 

Sure. But if there's no connection, there's simply no connection.

Certainly both Jon and Ghost left their wifi on, but the Wall would not allow the connection to take place. If Jon had attempted to "override" that wall, then Ghost would have suffered the same fate as Orell's doomed eagle.

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6 minutes ago, Voice said:

 

Sure. But if there's no connection, there's simply no connection.

Certainly both Jon and Ghost left their wifi on, but the Wall would not allow the connection to take place. If Jon had attempted to "override" that wall, then Ghost would have suffered the same fate as Orell's doomed eagle.

"override"... I get it ;)

hmm. I still need to think more on this, especially since not-so-good Queen Alysanne locked out northern magic and culture for her own reasons(probably selfish or coerced) .  There definitely is something there. 

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Just now, The Fattest Leech said:

"override"... I get it ;)

hmm. I still need to think more on this, especially since not-so-good Queen Alysanne locked out northern magic and culture for her own reasons(probably selfish or coerced) .  There definitely is something there. 

 

Big time. And I wrote this theory with GQA's actions 200 years ago weighing heavily on my mind.

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14 minutes ago, Voice said:

 

Big time. And I wrote this theory with GQA's actions 200 years ago weighing heavily on my mind.

I will have to get to that one tomorrow. I think many readers are fooled by the "good" Queen Alysanne and ignore/hand wave the atrocity she inflicted on northern culture, people, magic, and the Nights Watch. 

I have debated this many times. Some even claim she is good because her name says "good", to which I say but the "good" masters in Essos are bad for enslaving people, so a nickname means as much as a word on wind. 

I will say that I think people who skinchnage, or more specifically warg in this case, DO need to have their avatar animal present to "activate" that talent. This is why we haven't seen too many skinchangers or wargs south of the wall for this time. I also do believe it is possible for Lyanna to be a skinchanger into horses... but that is another thread. 

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3 minutes ago, The Fattest Leech said:

I will have to get to that one tomorrow. I think many readers are fooled by the "good" Queen Alysanne and ignore/hand wave the atrocity she inflicted on northern culture, people, magic, and the Nights Watch. 

I have debated this many times. Some even claim she is good because her name says "good", to which I say but the "good" masters in Essos are bad for enslaving people, so a nickname means as much as a word on wind. 

Will be happy to get deeper into it with you on the morrow, but I don't think that GQA needs be evil to have done great harm to the North.

I could write a whole essay on how bad Catelyn Tully was for the North, and Jon Arryn, but I don't think they were necessarily bad people with bad intentions.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions, they say. Alysanne's intentions were clearly to weaken the North. But given the rise of the ice zombies, that might not necessarily be a bad thing.

Then, of course, there is no question that she and her husband had what was perhaps the best tenure of any of the rulers of the Seven Kingdoms in history.

So, I give her a hard time, because I'm straight up Team First Men, but I do wonder if her damage to the north will prove to be a prescient admonition, in terms of ASOIAF's magical geo-politic.

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3 minutes ago, Voice said:

Will be happy to get deeper into it with you on the morrow, but I don't think that GQA needs be evil to have done great harm to the North.

I could write a whole essay on how bad Catelyn Tully was for the North, and Jon Arryn, but I don't think they were necessarily bad people with bad intentions.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions, they say. Alysanne's intentions were clearly to weaken the North. But given the rise of the ice zombies, that might not necessarily be a bad thing.

Then, of course, there is no question that she and her husband had what was perhaps the best tenure of any of the rulers of the Seven Kingdoms in history.

So, I give her a hard time, because I'm straight up Team First Men, but I do wonder if her damage to the north will prove to be a prescient admonition, in terms of ASOIAF's magical geo-politic.

Hahaha. I just can't quit you :lol:

How about when I have some free time tomorrow I start a GQA thread to discuss these details as to not derail this interesting thread? 

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1 minute ago, The Fattest Leech said:

Hahaha. I just can't quit you :lol:

How about when I have some free time tomorrow I start a GQA thread to discuss these details as to not derail this interesting thread? 

LOL! ditto! and deal. :)

T'would be much easier for us to do so at the Last Hearth, though.

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18 minutes ago, Voice said:

LOL! ditto! and deal. :)

T'would be much easier for us to do so at the Last Hearth, though.

DAMN IT! Here I am again when I should be working!!! 

But then how will the good people here get in on the good stuff if we move it all to LH? I guess we could (I still need to read what you linked to). For how can we debate RLJ, the pimp level of Littlefinger, and the meaning of Sansa's role in a thread topic about GQA if we move it there??? (Read high sarcasm) 

By the way, I don't think GQA was totally 'evil', but I do think she undid a lot of her good by doing to the north what she did. 

Sigh! Yes. See you tomorrow for a dance off over GQA.  :D

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20 hours ago, Voice said:

 

Big time. And I wrote this theory with GQA's actions 200 years ago weighing heavily on my mind.

Voice, I know I said I would start a thread today to dedicated to this particular topic, but alas, work has re-exploded all over me and I am beyond eyeballs deep in writing work that is due, and some that is overdue. Plus, I just had a few custom orders come in for things I make.

I did read your theory linked to here, and I love it. I feel like this is just a start because there is more I would love to add to this. I have not gone through the comments in the other forum, just read your theory and evidence. I am on board that boat! :thumbsup:

I will get to more of this within the next few days.

To anyone else, this is a good read if you are interested, which is why I replied to this post.

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On 8/2/2017 at 5:30 PM, Voice said:

Seems to me like Orell's Varamyr's Eagle was filled with the fire that burns against the cold and the light that brings the dawn. That's some serious UV exposure. 

I think the biggest problem I have with all of this: so no wildling skinchanger has ever tried to use a bird to spy on the Night's Watch before? Ever? Wouldn't that have been something Orell or Varamyr would have attempted at some point? Gathering intel seems like the most basic and obvious use of skinchanging.

And aren't we told that ravens are inhabited ~100% of the time by skinchangers? Why don't the ravens burst into flame?

I agree the wall seems to block psychic links but I'm not prepared to accept it shoots animals with lasers if there's an active link.

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On 8/3/2017 at 5:56 PM, Damon_Tor said:

I think the biggest problem I have with all of this: so no wildling skinchanger has ever tried to use a bird to spy on the Night's Watch before? Ever? Wouldn't that have been something Orell or Varamyr would have attempted at some point? Gathering intel seems like the most basic and obvious use of skinchanging.

First of all, I totally understand your skepticism. All of your reservations are well placed, and quite rational. :)

I'm sure other skinchangers have tried before Varamyr. And, I think they would have been driven mad, like Varamyr. Wildlings are full of superstition, and curses for the Wall. No doubt such experiences would have fanned those flames of contempt.

Regarding Orell and/or Varamyr attempting such surveillance before, I think we can assume they did not. Neither Varamyr nor Orell were from the region. Craster seems to have been the only wildling who didn't mind living close to the Wall. Orell and Varamyr were from more distant tribes. They were recruited by Mance Rayder and followed him south only recently.

We don't know much about Orell's early life. I assume he was from Ygritte's tribe, but I really can't say. We know far more about Varamyr, and we know that he used his abilities as a skinchanger to make himself into a petty lord of sorts. Villages payed him homage, and he forced women to have sex with him by intimidating them with his shadowcat.

So, while we don't truly know, I think it's safe to say neither Orell or Varamyr ever attempted to send an animal host across the barrier of the Wall before.

Also, we know that Haggon warned against the adoption of birds. Other animals were considered more preferable. So it might be that birds were rare for skinchanger-employment. Again, it's impossible to say, but surely any non-flying animal hosts would have been hard pressed to attempt such crossings.

Regarding you last point, gathering intel does seem like the most basic and obvious use to we modern readers with our modern concerns... but we see in the text that it is a far more fluid relationship. Bran slips into Summer often because he likes to run and hunt. He slips into Hodor when he wants strength. Varamyr slipped into a shadowcat for the purpose of raping women. The uses are many and varied. And it has been a very long time since any King Beyond the Wall has mounted an assault against the Night's Watch.

 

On 8/3/2017 at 5:56 PM, Damon_Tor said:

And aren't we told that ravens are inhabited ~100% of the time by skinchangers? Why don't the ravens burst into flame?

Not exactly. Here's the passage you're thinking of:

A Dance with Dragons - Bran III

Quote

 

"Someone else was in the raven," he told Lord Brynden, once he had returned to his own skin. "Some girl. I felt her."

"A woman, of those who sing the song of earth," his teacher said. "Long dead, yet a part of her remains, just as a part of you would remain in Summer if your boy's flesh were to die upon the morrow. A shadow on the soul. She will not harm you."

"Do all the birds have singers in them?"

"All," Lord Brynden said. "It was the singers who taught the First Men to send messages by raven … but in those days, the birds would speak the words. The trees remember, but men forget, and so now they write the messages on parchment and tie them round the feet of birds who have never shared their skin."

 

 

There is a difference, in my opinion, between a raven retaining a fragment of a long-dead skinchanger and an animal that is being inhabited by a living skinchanger.

I am not arguing that host-animals can never cross the Wall. I am only saying that the Wall is a barrier that blocks the connection between host and skinchanger quite absolutely (see Jon and Ghost). If one attempts to violate that firewall, say, by sending one's consciousness over the Wall inside of an eagle, there are severe consequences.

 

On 8/3/2017 at 5:56 PM, Damon_Tor said:

I agree the wall seems to block psychic links but I'm not prepared to accept it shoots animals with lasers if there's an active link.

No lasers, but yes, I do imagine an extreme amount of cosmic radiation incinerating the host animal as the result of a magical ward. Imo, we see a similar case when Euron's mate blows the Valyrian horn. The horn didn't shoot lasers at the dude's lungs, but clearly the magic caused him to burn up from the inside.

Rather than view this cosmic radiation (see the real world's starry winds of winter) as attacking the animal in question, I think it blocks and attacks the bond that exists between the host-animal and the skinchanger.

Jon experienced what this is like when passively disconnected from his wolf. Varamyr experienced what this is like when actively connected to his eagle.

 

On 8/3/2017 at 5:31 PM, The Fattest Leech said:

Voice, I know I said I would start a thread today to dedicated to this particular topic, but alas, work has re-exploded all over me and I am beyond eyeballs deep in writing work that is due, and some that is overdue. Plus, I just had a few custom orders come in for things I make.

I did read your theory linked to here, and I love it. I feel like this is just a start because there is more I would love to add to this. I have not gone through the comments in the other forum, just read your theory and evidence. I am on board that boat! :thumbsup:

I will get to more of this within the next few days.

To anyone else, this is a good read if you are interested, which is why I replied to this post.

No worries. Glad you liked it! :cheers:

It would be far easier for me to respond if you posted in the thread at the Last Hearth, though. Happy to here, but I'm there more often and the Hearth works better on mobile (not to mention, our servers don't crash the way westeros.org's tend to do).

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10 hours ago, Voice said:

Imo, we see a similar case when Euron's mate blows the Valyrian horn. The horn didn't shoot lasers at the dude's lungs, but clearly the magic caused him to burn up from the inside.

There is an interesting parallel here.

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