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Heresy 202 and still going


Black Crow

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13 hours ago, LynnS said:

I'm not sure that there is an ancient army of the dead shuffling around or that they haven't long since rotted away and crumbled into dust. I think whatever Bran saw there is something forever howling alone in the dark to quote Dany.  I think this place is a prison containing one thing:

I think that looking into the 'heart of winter' is the same thing as looking into it's soul. I imagine what Bran saw was the thing created by the cotf to prosecute their war.  The thing that turned on them as well.  Looking into it's heart and soul would be like looking into madness.  So I don't think we are shown anything because what Bran sees isn't something on the physical plane - a tree or any undead army - he sees the enemy he will face. The thing that can create an undead army and hold them as thralls.  

There does seem to be a connection between the WW and the cotf.  I'm just not sure that they would seek to release something they couldn't control or that would destroy them as well.  So I don't know why the WW's are being created.

 I look to Euron for an idea of what the ancient enemy might look like in it's heart and soul if it was seeking to escape and be reborn.

There is an old heresy that the last hero paid a heavy price to defeat the enemy and the Starks are bound to that legacy.  It seems to me that the Wall and it's keeper were created to keep the enemy in it's prison.    

Or more precisely, the heresy from the very beginning of this thread, has been that the Starks were bound in allegiance to the Ice until the Nights King was overthrown by his brother. Now the old Starks, not the long crumbled dead, but the long stark-faced white walkers want to come back and reclaim their own

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39 minutes ago, Black Crow said:

Or more precisely, the heresy from the very beginning of this thread, has been that the Starks were bound in allegiance to the Ice until the Nights King was overthrown by his brother. Now the old Starks, not the long crumbled dead, but the long stark-faced white walkers want to come back and reclaim their own

- Why were they never burned and their bones pounded into dust?

- Why does each King of Winter have a direwolf at his feet?

- Why an iron sword across the knee denying guest rights?

- Why are they preserved at all?

- Why must there always be a Stark in Winterfell? 

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11 minutes ago, LynnS said:

- Why were they never burned and their bones pounded into dust?

- Why are they preserved at all?

- Why must there always be a Stark in Winterfell? 

Because winter is (always) coming and the Starks might need the Kings of Winter once more.

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3 minutes ago, LynnS said:

To do what?

My guess it to protect the pack and their allies during the wars caused by the long winters. Too many years of dominance over the North made the Starks forget about their weapons of mass destruction.

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33 minutes ago, LynnS said:

To do what?

The Long Night has come before. Oh, eight thousand years is a good while, to be sure … yet if the Night's Watch does not remember, who will?"

The First Men only left us runes on rocks, so everything we think we know about the Age of Heroes and the Dawn Age and the Long Night comes from accounts set down by septons thousands of years later. There are archmaesters at the Citadel who question all of it. Those old histories are full of kings who reigned for hundreds of years, and knights riding around a thousand years before there were knights. You know the tales, Brandon the Builder, Symeon Star-Eyes, Night's King … we say that you're the nine-hundred-and-ninety-eighth Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, but the oldest list I've found shows six hundred seventy-four commanders, which suggests that it was written during—"

But the serious question is ... who is Symeon Star-Eyes ?

51 minutes ago, LynnS said:

- Why were they never burned and their bones pounded into dust?

- Why does each King of Winter have a direwolf at his feet?

- Why an iron sword across the knee denying guest rights?

- Why are they preserved at all?

- Why must there always be a Stark in Winterfell? 

- to be awaken again , why else ? The question is ... for what purpose.

- Symeon Star-Eyes saw Hellhounds at the Nightfort. But before or after No. 13 ?

- I don't want visitors from the Underworld in my house

- That is the question

- That is the question, maybe to deny guest rights.

 

From what I can decrypt I would assume the Starks of Old made a pact with the devil for their soul after dead. Only that the devil was something else. I could even work with Those old histories are full of kings who reigned for hundreds of years, and knights riding around a thousand years before there were knights. Now what was the price ? A pact for all generations that has to be fulfilled else the world will have a long night forever ? And the Night's King broke the pact. Same as Ned broke the pact because nobody told him the rules. And Roose Bolton is indeed many many centuries old...

Ok, a lot of big speculation. But I bet Roose Bolton knows something.

 

edit: How many tombs are in Winterfell ? 674 ? 998 ? more ?

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16 hours ago, Black Crow said:

And they are also family

I was just doing a search of "white shadow" in the books and noticed that the term is only used in reference to the White Walkers, Ghost and the kingsguard. There seems to be a protection theme.

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4 minutes ago, SirArthur said:

The Long Night has come before. Oh, eight thousand years is a good while, to be sure … yet if the Night's Watch does not remember, who will?"

The First Men only left us runes on rocks, so everything we think we know about the Age of Heroes and the Dawn Age and the Long Night comes from accounts set down by septons thousands of years later. There are archmaesters at the Citadel who question all of it. Those old histories are full of kings who reigned for hundreds of years, and knights riding around a thousand years before there were knights. You know the tales, Brandon the Builder, Symeon Star-Eyes, Night's King … we say that you're the nine-hundred-and-ninety-eighth Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, but the oldest list I've found shows six hundred seventy-four commanders, which suggests that it was written during—"

Well exactly this.  How do we know that the NK is the ancient enemy or that the tales about him aren't mince?  What would the septons say about Bran generations from now or Bloodraven for that matter. Bran whose name cannot be spoken, at least by Sam anyway or Jon who would have to hide his identity should he abandon the watch, forever hiding in the shadows, reviled by men.

What was the price for defeating the ancient enemy? That the Starks should be watchers on the walls, greenseers; their seed given over to the old gods of the wood. Guarding the Wall, the wards, the black gate and the realms of men against the return of the great other.   Something that has been vanquished, imprisoned and long forgotten by men.  

Perhaps there is nothing in the crypts and the cup only passes from one king to another.  Perhaps only ice can combat ice and the king of winter must be armored against the cold wind.  Perhaps it comes down to who can control the wights and the white walkers.  Or maybe it comes down to the horn of winter, the NK's horn, that can bind his brothers to his will.  Would that be useful against Euron when he shows up?  LOL

     

 

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10 minutes ago, Tucu said:

I was just doing a search of "white shadow" in the books and noticed that the term is only in reference of the White Walkers, Ghost and the kingsguard. There seems to be a protection theme.

Interesting!  The table in the Lord Commanders quarters is made of weirwood in the shape of a shield.

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12 minutes ago, LynnS said:

Interesting!  The table in the Lord Commanders quarters is made of weirwood in the shape of a shield.

This puts a new twist in the vows of the Night's Watch; the White Walkers/Starks being the protectors of the CoTF/Weirwoods/Others during the Long Night.

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3 minutes ago, Tucu said:

This puts a new twist in the vows of the Night's Watch; the White Walkers/Starks being the protectors of the CoTF/Others during the Long Night.

I am the watcher on the walls. I am the fire that burns against the cold, the light that brings the dawn, the horn that wakes the sleepers, the shield that guards the realms of men.

Robert of the House Baratheon, the First of his Name, King of the Andals and the Rhoynar and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms and Protector of the Realm  (singular !)

 

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20 minutes ago, Tucu said:

This puts a new twist in the vows of the Night's Watch; the White Walkers/Starks being the protectors of the CoTF/Weirwoods/Others during the Long Night.

If the cotf created their own army of wights and white walkers from a population of men in the original conflict; it could be said that brother fought against brother.  But their own army turned on them as well.

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32 minutes ago, LynnS said:

If the cotf created their own army of wights and white walkers from a population of men in the original conflict; it could be said that brother fought against brother.  But their own army turned on them as well.

I was thinking that this can explain why we have 2 Brandon Stark brothers fighting each other. Brandon the Night's King defeated by Brandon The Breaker, a traitor to the original Night's Watch.

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I think my brain has found a solution about everything we discussed. So bear with me:

1. What lies north and north and north again ?  Winter-fell

2. What lies north and north and north again ? The heart of winter

3. Bran cries when he sees inside the heart of winter because ....

4. he sees Winterfell, more specific, the crypts

5. Why does he cry ? because he is not fearless 

6. Why is he not fearless ? Because he is still alive, only the dead are fearless

7. Why do the Starks have a large crypt and the King's of Winter can have a second live ? So that they are fearless

8. Fearless so they can enter the crypt

9. into the heart to winter

10. The crypts call to Jon and jon will enter them

11. to find the solution to bring the end to the long night

12. to bring Dawn

13. and end the long night in the heart of winter. All he needs is Lightbringer from House Dayne. 

14. And only a Stark can do it. Whyever this is the case I do not know.

 

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18 hours ago, LynnS said:

I'm not sure that there is an ancient army of the dead shuffling around or that they haven't long since rotted away and crumbled into dust.

I didn't mean an army of the dead, I specifically meant whatever white walkers (or their creators) were leftover after either the end of the LN or the ouster of the NK might have taken refuge in the far, far north, or made it into a stronghold; I'm operating under the assumption that the Others, if their magic were in decline, would be unable to raise the dead, create new WWs, or perhaps even carry the cold winds with them--a set of circumstances that would make them incredibly vulnerable.

I have generally assumed that the Others were either sealed away or rendered magically impotent, and that what we're seeing is a resumption of activity, as opposed to the Others having been a persistent presence in the lands of the Free Folk, and suddenly going hostile in response to some unknown offense.

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3 hours ago, Tucu said:

This puts a new twist in the vows of the Night's Watch; the White Walkers/Starks being the protectors of the CoTF/Weirwoods/Others during the Long Night.

I hadn't thought of it in the context of the NW vows, but this is the general idea I'm leaning toward with referencing Whitetree's nearness to the Nightfort, and the idea of "godly" men and women being forced to make offerings--that, in the era of the first 13 LCs, the Watch was not only allowing this to happen, but that it may have been the Stark-at-the-Wall (King of Winter?) collecting and converting the tributes into new white walkers.

The CotF failed to stop the incursions of men at the Arm of Dorne, failed again at the Neck, and finally succeeded at the border of the Haunted Forest; or, perhaps, were forced to stop men at the border of the Haunted Forest in response to repeated violations of the Pact. I think there are multiple timelines that could potentially work here.

The Wall divides the realms of men from the last truly pristine deep forest (House Durrandon having claimed the Rain Wood, House Stark the Wolf's Wood, and most of the rest having been destroyed)--the Haunted Forest. Those humans unfortunate enough to find themselves on the wrong side of the Wall were forced to pay the blood toll, or face destruction.

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