A Total Eclipse of the Heart: The Nissa Nissa is Night's Queen Spitball

[hiemal]

It's been a while since I've tossed any tinfoil into the forums and this one warrants some build-up starting with my speculation on my favorite tinfoil target, the Bloodstone Emperor. I've previously mentioned what I believe were his "experiments" in creative genetics that were recorded in the Lightbringer myth and I'd like to break that down a bit before we get to the Ice part of the Song.

 

1. I believe the Bloodstone Emperor is our archetypical broken or interrupted monomyth (as opposed to the broken or interrupted Mystery cycle of Night's Queen and the broken seasons) and like so many of the younger sons we encounter his Hero's Journey begins with travel (The Royce lad in the prologue. Benjen, Oberyn, Euron, Aemon, and...) I think his first stop of importance here was to dally with the Deep Ones- to plunge his sword into water, to learn their secrets of mutation or perversion represented by the Oily Black Stone and tectonic manipulation represented by Nagga.

During this time he either becomes the Gray King and creates a petty kingdom of his own or fathers the Gray King on a Deep One. Nagga is defeated. Perhaps BSE's college buddy Serwyn is involved?

2. Moving on he takes a Child bride from the Forests of Westeros- and buys into the weirwood pact and acquires the green dreams and skinchanging abilities he needs by plunging his "sword" into a "tiger". I think this might be the origins of the Warg Kings but alternately he could have acquired a Lengii bride and secret knowledge from them.

3. Regardless, we come to Nissa Nissa, the Amethyst Empress, and Kore Interrupted. Her Queen's Blood, as opposed to her Maiden's blood, is taken by BSE's third tempering, the Maiden Clothed in Light is eclipsed by the Lion of Night, the cycle of seasons is broken, the Long Night begins, and cyclical and linear time (Mystery and Monomyth) become entangled with several  notable consequences:

The Bloodstone Emperor partiallys succeeds in his ambitions. Green Dreams become red and wargs become dragonriders.  BSE creates a faux weirnet using the fires of the earth instead of weirwoods and installs himself as R'hlorr, god of flame and shadow and crowns himself with the usurpers corona of the eclipse's penumbra.

But

The Amethyst Empress uses the backlash to crown herself Lady of Ice and Death, Night's Queen and First Fury. She may have established herself by warging the comet that resulted from her cry of agony and ecstasy cracking the face of the moon but that's a bit speculative even for me. Her appearance at the Wall could mark the comet's first return?

I'm not sure but I think this dynamic may in some way be playing out between Bloodraven and Quaithe.

So in the end. it looks like it could all boil down to the Last Hero completing the monomyth allowing the cycle of Mystery to move forward again?

Anyways, that's enough crazy for one post. Anyone else had thoughts running along these lines?

 

[Lady Blizzardborn]

Well my first thought was that GRRM said the dragonriding bond is different from skinchanging. My second was warging only applies to wolves.

Third thought was this is pretty cool, hiemal!

[hiemal]

A little more on the idea of mystery vs. monomyth:

I feel that this tension- one of many dynamics playing out in the Song including the Ice and Fire in the title, bronze vs. iron, preliterate vs. literate societies (bards vs. maesters and their tug-of-war over history as well as the power of names (Jaqen and No One, birthday vs. Nameday, etc), matriarchy vs. patriarchy, and several others that aren't leaping immediately to mind.

Mystery vs. monomyth, I think, also encompasses cyclical vs linear time- the cycle of the seasons and of death and life exemplified by the Old Gods and their associated cycle of souls set against the idea of time as something that begins and will eventually end, flowing inexorably from past to future and embodied by the faith of the Seven with their eternal Heavens and their everlasting Hells.

The interruption of this transition leaves an unbalanced world where time is both cyclical and linear, where prophecy defines the future rather predicting it and events must play themselves out again and again with different faces.

And if I might descend into vulgarity does the imagery of linear and cyclical time reacting like that so that events come around again, presumably to get it right this time, seem kind of sexual- lingam and yoni getting it on temporally? Seems par for the course in GRRMverse.

 

Bonus tinfoil from left field:

I'm going out on a spindly limb and making guesses at the names of the Bloodstone Emperor and the Amethyst Empress for no good reason!

The Bloodstone Emperor was, I hereby predict, named Rhaellor. and his unfortunate sister was either Valerys or Valyria.

Rhaellor to R'hlorr seems straightforward enough and I think stands in mythic relation to Rhaegar, even it requires a fair amount of tinfoil but Valerys is from (bear with me, these are pretty tricky leaps...) Balerion to Balerys (like Viserys to Viserion) which reminds me of Polaris (the Ice Dragon's Rider's eye in Planetos) and Valyria. Either way it could be a GRRMized Valerie.

 

[Dorian Martell's son]

On 9/3/2017 at 11:58 AM, hiemal said:

It's been a while since I've tossed any tinfoil into the forums and this one warrants some build-up starting with my speculation on my favorite tinfoil target, the Bloodstone Emperor. I've previously mentioned what I believe were his "experiments" in creative genetics that were recorded in the Lightbringer myth and I'd like to break that down a bit before we get to the Ice part of the Song.

 

1. I believe the Bloodstone Emperor is our archetypical broken or interrupted monomyth (as opposed to the broken or interrupted Mystery cycle of Night's Queen and the broken seasons) and like so many of the younger sons we encounter his Hero's Journey begins with travel (The Royce lad in the prologue. Benjen, Oberyn, Euron, Aemon, and...) I think his first stop of importance here was to dally with the Deep Ones- to plunge his sword into water, to learn their secrets of mutation or perversion represented by the Oily Black Stone and tectonic manipulation represented by Nagga.

During this time he either becomes the Gray King and creates a petty kingdom of his own or fathers the Gray King on a Deep One. Nagga is defeated. Perhaps BSE's college buddy Serwyn is involved?

2. Moving on he takes a Child bride from the Forests of Westeros- and buys into the weirwood pact and acquires the green dreams and skinchanging abilities he needs by plunging his "sword" into a "tiger". I think this might be the origins of the Warg Kings but alternately he could have acquired a Lengii bride and secret knowledge from them.

3. Regardless, we come to Nissa Nissa, the Amethyst Empress, and Kore Interrupted. Her Queen's Blood, as opposed to her Maiden's blood, is taken by BSE's third tempering, the Maiden Clothed in Light is eclipsed by the Lion of Night, the cycle of seasons is broken, the Long Night begins, and cyclical and linear time (Mystery and Monomyth) become entangled with several  notable consequences:

The Bloodstone Emperor partiallys succeeds in his ambitions. Green Dreams become red and wargs become dragonriders.  BSE creates a faux weirnet using the fires of the earth instead of weirwoods and installs himself as R'hlorr, god of flame and shadow and crowns himself with the usurpers corona of the eclipse's penumbra.

But

The Amethyst Empress uses the backlash to crown herself Lady of Ice and Death, Night's Queen and First Fury. She may have established herself by warging the comet that resulted from her cry of agony and ecstasy cracking the face of the moon but that's a bit speculative even for me. Her appearance at the Wall could mark the comet's first return?

I'm not sure but I think this dynamic may in some way be playing out between Bloodraven and Quaithe.

So in the end. it looks like it could all boil down to the Last Hero completing the monomyth allowing the cycle of Mystery to move forward again?

Anyways, that's enough crazy for one post. Anyone else had thoughts running along these lines?

 

The great empire of the dawn and Stone Emperors never existed in book. It was just a tall tale spun to give local flavor to the tales of the long night and the others that made their way east from westeros 

[hiemal]

On 9/4/2017 at 7:54 PM, Lady Blizzardborn said:

Well my first thought was that GRRM said the dragonriding bond is different from skinchanging.

I didn't know that. Hmmmm, that might stand against my theory or it might not I think. Would mutating into something so specific qualify it as "different" or does that suggest separate origins? I really want to simplify things...

On 9/4/2017 at 7:54 PM, Lady Blizzardborn said:

 My second was warging only applies to wolves.

 

Yeah, I try to use "skingchange" but sometimes I slip. Or maybe just get lazy and feel like typing the shortest word.

On 9/4/2017 at 7:54 PM, Lady Blizzardborn said:

 

Third thought was this is pretty cool, hiemal!

Thank you. I enjoy trying to tie everything together and don't mind being spectacularly wrong.

[hiemal]

23 minutes ago, Dorian Martell's son said:

The great empire of the dawn and Stone Emperors never existed in book. It was just a tall tale spun to give local flavor to the tales of the long night and the others that made their way east from westeros 

I admire the facility with which you wield your Valyrian Steel Occam's Razor but while I seek simplicity I also operate on the assumption (possibly making an ass of us) that most or all of the stories have some basis in fact and the more scoffed at the underlying ideas are the closer to literal truth the story is likely to be. I want to keep my entities from multiplying, in other words, but I'm fairly sure there are at least a few of them kicking around, even if they are not what the tall tales describe.

[Lady Blizzardborn]

On 9/26/2017 at 3:03 PM, hiemal said:

I didn't know that. Hmmmm, that might stand against my theory or it might not I think. Would mutating into something so specific qualify it as "different" or does that suggest separate origins? I really want to simplify things...

Yeah, I try to use "skingchange" but sometimes I slip. Or maybe just get lazy and feel like typing the shortest word.

Thank you. I enjoy trying to tie everything together and don't mind being spectacularly wrong.

Responding on too little sleep here, but...

Mutating in fact directly implies the same origin. The mutation has to come from somewhere. So if you're thinking dragonriding or dragonbonding is a genetic mutation of skinchanging, then you could be on to something here. Or it could be the other way around...the skinchanging could be the mutation. Both require a bond between human and animal, but which came first?

So...the question on this is which one was the original and which the mutation. I don't really see much point in any gene mutating to become weaker, but I suppose it could happen. Is there anyone in here with enough of a scientific background to solve this riddle?

[falcotron]

1 hour ago, Lady Blizzardborn said:

I don't really see much point in any gene mutating to become weaker, but I suppose it could happen.

Well, it depends on what exactly you mean by that. Obviously we don't have genes for magical powers, or genes that only activate in one in a million people, or anything like that, and the idea of a gene becoming weaker is pretty vague.

But there are lots of ways you can imagine that a mutation that turned skinchanging into dragonriding could spread.

Maybe it's not actually weakening, but getting more specific—you can ride a dragon with skinchanging, but you can ride a dragon more easily with the dragonriding-only version. It's pretty easy to imagine how the more specific mutated version would be more adaptive among the dragonrider families.

Meanwhile, if some kind of fantasy-super-recessive trait that only shows up in one in a million people unless you specifically breed for it were possible, you'd probably have to accept mutated versions of it when they arose. Let's say you a dragonlord generations on from the founding of Valyria, and there's been enough outbreeding that you can't guarantee finding a skinchanger for each of your kids to marry. If you find one person who definitely has the defective, dragons-only version (which means your grandkids will definitely get the dragons-only version) and another who you think is a carrier for the full version (which means your grandkids have a 50% chance of the full version and a 50% chance of just being carriers), which do you choose? A lot of people would probably choose the guaranteed dragons-only version. Which means that version will continue to spread.

Or maybe the dragons-only defect is not a mutation in the skinchanging gene itself, but a mutation in another gene that activates the skinchanging gene, and that other gene is right next to the purple-eyes mutation on a chromosome, so by selecting for purple eyes you're unwittingly selecting for dragons-only skinchanging.

Or the mutation could have some side effect that's adaptive. You've probably heard of the connection between sickle-cell anemia and malaria immunity. Maybe the dragons-only gene also gives you, say, increased heat tolerance.

And so on.

I think the whole theory is silly, but this particular objection to it doesn't hold much water.

[hiemal]

10 hours ago, Lady Blizzardborn said:

 

Mutating in fact directly implies the same origin. The mutation has to come from somewhere. So if you're thinking dragonriding or dragonbonding is a genetic mutation of skinchanging, then you could be on to something here.

This is what I suspect- it is the core of my green dreams/red dreams/blue dreams theory.

The "gifts" of those who follow the Old Gods come from their spiritual contact with the cyclical time of the weirnets soul cycle filtered through their physical bodies (eye color for example, or family history determining which animals are most easily bonded- follow those souls?) so that green dreams are fragments of knowledge plucked from the weirnet while skinchangers send their awareness along these "soul nodes".

I suspect the mutation took place when a new system was constructed, a new network of souls based on the fires of the earth and on obsidian. Those who "buy in" are given red dreams, but soul cycle seems to be different. I think it is telling that we don't have much information on the afterlife the adherents of the Lord of the Light might expect, but I'm fairly sure that at least the souls of the Valyrians are involved with dragons and that the skinchanging gift manifests as an increased spiritual bond with one particular soul rather than riding along the network and inhabiting the beast. Dragons are uncanny and play by their own rules.

10 hours ago, Lady Blizzardborn said:

Responding on too little sleep here, but...

. Or it could be the other way around...the skinchanging could be the mutation. Both require a bond between human and animal, but which came first?

 

Or could blue dreams be the oldest? The Deep Ones do seem to be the primal, antediluvian force on Planetos so I don't discount them although i suspect that as I mentioned previously their contribution had more to do with direct genetic manipulation. Just not enough information on them to even conclude that they are definitely more than legend.

10 hours ago, Lady Blizzardborn said:

So...the question on this is which one was the original and which the mutation. I don't really see much point in any gene mutating to become weaker, but I suppose it could happen. Is there anyone in here with enough of a scientific background to solve this riddle?

Not weaker but more focused. More useful to a very specific purpose.

[cgrav]

I think dragonbond and warg are similar, but it's skinchanging that's different. The dragon and wolf bonds are completely natural to both the person and animal, to the point that it seems one is not complete without the other. 

Skinchanging appears to be a perversion of the natural, willing bond and is used on creatures against their will. Recall that GRRM goes out of the way to discuss how Varamyr's animals had to be broken in, and the thread ends with his attempt on Thistle. 

Thus they're all on a spectrum, but on opposite ends, and plays into a free will vs slavery narrative, or nature vs man. In a way, we can extend the theme to the seasons, which are broken because of some magical act. The planet/heavens itself was deprived of its will and is now alternately "controlled" by an unbalanced conflict between ice and fire.

 

edit: regarding genes... I think scientific explanations border on anachronistic. We have to think about heredity in a medieval mindset, which allows for quite a bit more mystery and magic. What we'd call highly recessive traits are essentially random and magical. I think the more likely framework of heredity is additive, such as how animal breeding worked. That is, we are working strictly with phenotypes as dominant, while unexpressed genotype are not considered. Thus although we postulate a common hereditary source for these innate magical abilities, they show up without any clear pattern. Bran, Bloodraven, Jojen, Varamyr... no clear blood relation, but all expressing a similar trait.

[hiemal]

Textual evidence of the cyclical/linear time dynamic I think can be found in the passage where the Shy Maid blushingly made her way past the Bridge of Dreams twice in order to fulfill certain preordained conditions.

Forgot to bring this up above.

 

[cgrav]

1 hour ago, hiemal said:

Textual evidence of the cyclical/linear time dynamic I think can be found in the passage where the Shy Maid blushingly made her way past the Bridge of Dreams twice in order to fulfill certain preordained conditions.

Forgot to bring this up above.

 

Cyclicality makes sense given the lunar basis of the symbolism. Plus a Shy Maid could be construed as a crescent moon, showing only part of itself. The full moon would be Nissa Nissa baring her breast, the opposite of shyness.

[Lady Blizzardborn]

18 hours ago, falcotron said:

Well, it depends on what exactly you mean by that. Obviously we don't have genes for magical powers, or genes that only activate in one in a million people, or anything like that, and the idea of a gene becoming weaker is pretty vague.

<snip

Or maybe the dragons-only defect is not a mutation in the skinchanging gene itself, but a mutation in another gene that activates the skinchanging gene, and that other gene is right next to the purple-eyes mutation on a chromosome, so by selecting for purple eyes you're unwittingly selecting for dragons-only skinchanging.

Or the mutation could have some side effect that's adaptive. You've probably heard of the connection between sickle-cell anemia and malaria immunity. Maybe the dragons-only gene also gives you, say, increased heat tolerance.

And so on.

I think the whole theory is silly, but this particular objection to it doesn't hold much water.

I meant that from an evolutionary standpoint a gene mutating to do less, or the same thing but to a lesser extent seems counterproductive. What would be the biological imperative to downgrade from skinchanging to only riding? Granted most skinchanged beings are not magical ones, and dragons most definitely are magical creatures.

Again, dragonriding is not skinchanging. But the idea of two genes interacting is thought-provoking and it would be interesting to see the effects in Jon and Daenerys who might both carry the skinchanging and the dragonriding. We know from Varamyr Sixskins that Jon is an extremely powerful skinchanger. We already know Bloodraven is, and the only known possible source for that is his Blackwood blood. The Stark kids all have that First Men Stark blood (and Tully, but they weren't know to have huge furry, dangerous pets hang around in the past).

That's a good point there. The heat tolerance is something Targaryens do tend to have.

I've been doing a lot of canning lately so I'm tired of water anyway.

[Lady Blizzardborn]

9 hours ago, hiemal said:

<snip

Or could blue dreams be the oldest? The Deep Ones do seem to be the primal, antediluvian force on Planetos so I don't discount them although i suspect that as I mentioned previously their contribution had more to do with direct genetic manipulation. Just not enough information on them to even conclude that they are definitely more than legend.

Not weaker but more focused. More useful to a very specific purpose.

It's been a while since I've read the thread on the different color associations with the different magics. Does blue indicate water, or ice, or both? Because it's occurred to me that the CotF's use of the Hammer of the Waters is interesting given that they are associated primary with earth magic, not water magic. Though there could be a difference between freshwater magic and saltwater magic, maybe.

7 hours ago, cgrav said:

I think dragonbond and warg are similar, but it's skinchanging that's different. The dragon and wolf bonds are completely natural to both the person and animal, to the point that it seems one is not complete without the other. 

Skinchanging appears to be a perversion of the natural, willing bond and is used on creatures against their will. Recall that GRRM goes out of the way to discuss how Varamyr's animals had to be broken in, and the thread ends with his attempt on Thistle. 

Thus they're all on a spectrum, but on opposite ends, and plays into a free will vs slavery narrative, or nature vs man. In a way, we can extend the theme to the seasons, which are broken because of some magical act. The planet/heavens itself was deprived of its will and is now alternately "controlled" by an unbalanced conflict between ice and fire.

edit: regarding genes... I think scientific explanations border on anachronistic. We have to think about heredity in a medieval mindset, which allows for quite a bit more mystery and magic. What we'd call highly recessive traits are essentially random and magical. I think the more likely framework of heredity is additive, such as how animal breeding worked. That is, we are working strictly with phenotypes as dominant, while unexpressed genotype are not considered. Thus although we postulate a common hereditary source for these innate magical abilities, they show up without any clear pattern. Bran, Bloodraven, Jojen, Varamyr... no clear blood relation, but all expressing a similar trait.

That's not skinchanging in general though, that's just one guy who abuses his powers. None of the Stark skinchangers have forcibly "broken" animals (though Bran's dealing with Hodor is disturbingly similar). The skinchanging that the Starks who are not Bran do is natural. Arya didn't have to fight to subdue that cat in Braavos anymore than Bran had to fight to subdue Summer. Varamyr is the dark side of the force, the example of how the power can be used for evil, he is not the sum total. There is a clear moral issue when he tries to skinchange into Thistle despite having been told through his training that it is wrong to skinchange a human being. Human beings have a definite consciousness or soul, whereas there's always been debate about whether animals are on the same level as people are. It may not be "wrong" to force a bond on an animal, but it's a jerk thing to do, and Varamyr is the only skinchanger we've seen do that. By the way, warging IS skinchanging, but the term warg is specific to someone who can skinchange a wolf.

The common thing there is First Men, and possibly a touch of CotF for Jojen. The Starks, Blackwoods, Reeds, and Wildlings are all descended from the First Men. Bran is descended from Starks who were probably skinchangers and who drove the Warg King out of the Wolfswood and took his daughters as prizes, thus he may have Warg King blood. Bloodraven may similarly be descended from the Warg King through his Blackwood mother (there's a Blackwood bride in recent Stark history as well, by the way). The crannogmen are peculiarly close to the CotF in physical traits and knowledge and may well be descended from them in part. Varamyr, being a Wildling, is of First Men descent as well.

[cgrav]

52 minutes ago, Lady Blizzardborn said:

That's not skinchanging in general though

I'm splitting this hair to a degree. The bond that the direwolves and dragons have with their humans is shown to us as very mutual, with Ghost's feelings/thoughts/sensations at one point even sort of invading Jon's mind, and Dany having strong emotional connection to Drogon. In no other examples are we shown such shared empathy, with both actively embracing the bond. It's a fundamentally different relationship when an animal is skinchanged without the bond. 

[hiemal]

4 hours ago, cgrav said:

Cyclicality makes sense given the lunar basis of the symbolism. Plus a Shy Maid could be construed as a crescent moon, showing only part of itself. The full moon would be Nissa Nissa baring her breast, the opposite of shyness.

Very nice- I was thinking of the second, but the first hadn't occurred to me. Good catch

[hiemal]

1 hour ago, Lady Blizzardborn said:

It's been a while since I've read the thread on the different color associations with the different magics. Does blue indicate water, or ice, or both? Because it's occurred to me that the CotF's use of the Hammer of the Waters is interesting given that they are associated primary with earth magic, not water magic. Though there could be a difference between freshwater magic and saltwater magic, maybe.

 

Perhaps the Broken Arm and the Hammer were the results of undersea tectonics- "Nagga" unleashed.

Further- although the Deep Ones are clearly tied to the sea, I am not sure that has always been the case. I think the Deep Ones were driven into the sea (and possibly beneath the ground on Leng) after losing a war with CotF. I think their magic is primarily concerned with mutation and corruption, like the Oily Black Stone they built with. I further suspect that they took some Children with them as slaves and used that magic to create the merlings to serve them in their new home. I think we have encountered a form of this magic in the corrupt blue heart in the House of the Undying and in the Shade of the Evening trees (corrupted weirwoods).

[cgrav]

1 minute ago, hiemal said:

Very nice- I was thinking of the second, but the first hadn't occurred to me. Good catch

I'll have to re-read that chapter to figure out the significance of having to make two passes. I'm also wondering if the Stone Men are a stand-in for Others in some way. Or maybe they're meant to represent meteors? 
 

[hiemal]

24 minutes ago, cgrav said:

I'll have to re-read that chapter to figure out the significance of having to make two passes. I'm also wondering if the Stone Men are a stand-in for Others in some way. Or maybe they're meant to represent meteors? 
 

I think they are related. As for the meteors- another great catch.

[hiemal]

On the stone men and meteors:

I've previously examined sexual imagery of alien invasion via meteor and I think the Stone Men are a great example but a more cyclical spin that ties in with this thread presents itself. The Stone Men represent the deadly seed of Mother Rhoyne first sown thousands of years ago having sprouted in foreign soil and then returned to their point of ultimate origin to fall into the river and presumably end their days as miniatures of the titan whose upthrust hand the Maid twice passes (morbid fancy- they accrue sediment like pearls and keep growing and the titan is only the first and largest) but for the one seed that impregnated her with corruption. The Rhoyne is a menstrual stream and the Bridge is flinging tainted seed on passing maids like Miggs in Silence of the Lambs.