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Heresy 203 and growing suspicions anent the Starks


Black Crow

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30 minutes ago, Black Crow said:

A good question and what we don't know is why

Some time ago there was an SSM in which GRRM said something to the effect that it wasn't necessary for all three heads of the dragon to be Targaryens. This was popularly interpreted as meaning that two of the dragon riders [note the subtle change] would be Jon and Danaerys Targaryen and the third Tyrion Lannister.

All things are possible, but why must there be three? Its a number that comes up a lot of course, not least in Aegon the Conqueror and his consorts, but he never claimed to be the Prince, he may have consciously emulated the three heads of the dragon, but if it simply takes the form of three dragon riders why the fuss. While we don't know the prophecy the requirement that there must be three suggests that the three are equal and that the three are necessary to accomplish something; hypothetically each turning three launch keys simultaneously, or each standing on one of the points of a triangle surrounding something.

Whatever it turns out to be, its not going to be as straightforward as a dragon rider and two wingmen.

If we are talking about power trios; then Bran, Jon and Arya must constitute one triplet.

Perhaps this explanation of the rule of three trope and it variations contains some hint:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RuleOfThree

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On 27.12.2017 at 8:54 AM, Black Crow said:

As to the loss of knowledge, if its passed on from father to son within a single family it doesn't take much to lose it. We have at least three instances in the Stark line, and I understand similar problems in the Targaryen line

But wouldn't this be way too much risky?

These knowlege is the source of the family's power, no one would risk to loose it by having just one or two persons know the secrets, especially in a world were sudden death is common, by war, sickness etc.

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On 12/27/2017 at 11:09 AM, LynnS said:

Oh! Happy New Year, Matthew!

Not only does she perform a resurrection, the life of her child is exchanged from someone long dead, thus her own child was long dead.

Happy new year, and that's a great observation about Rhaego--while it seems obvious enough that his life was traded to quicken the eggs, I'd never made the additional connection that he had, in a sense, traded 'states' with the dragons (long dead). That's the sort of weirdness that I can see Martin applying to his magic.
 

2 hours ago, The Chequered Raven said:

But wouldn't this be way too much risky?

These knowlege is the source of the family's power, no one would risk to loose it by having just one or two persons know the secrets, especially in a world were sudden death is common, by war, sickness etc.

The flip side of this is that, the more people that know the secret, the greater the risk of the secret being spread.

There's an SSM where Martin confirms that the Targaryens were the only dragonlords to survive the Doom (presumably, the other survivors of the Doom are just 'mundane' Valyrians), so I'd imagine that the Targaryen regime wouldn't want anyone to disrupt their monopoly on the dragons.

And, to reiterate, a large amount of the Targs died during the Dance of the Dragons, including many of the ones that would have been most likely to have been entrusted with whatever knowledge Viserys I had to pass on. So, even if many of them had the knowledge, the Dance was catastrophic enough that the Targaryens may have lost a lot of their lore at that point in time.

Edit: In addition, the premise that the Targs would appreciate the risk of only a small number (say, their immediate heir) having such important knowledge, and thus would ensure it is trusted to more than just 1 or 2 people, is predicated on people behaving logically. 

We can, at the least, look at Aerys II as an example of a monarch whose paranoia extended to his own son, so all it takes is one crazy head of the House to destroy or distort generations worth of oral traditions; as a different example, I wouldn't be at all surprised if there's a lot of revisionist history in the lore of House Stark.

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53 minutes ago, Matthew. said:

We can, at the least, look at Aerys II as an example of a monarch whose paranoia extended to his own son, so all it takes is one crazy head of the House to destroy or distort generations worth of oral traditions

I would include the destruction of books with relevant knowledge:

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A Feast for Crows - Samwell IV

That had been one of his last good days. After that the old man spent more time sleeping than awake, curled up beneath a pile of furs in the captain's cabin. Sometimes he would mutter in his sleep. When he woke he'd call for Sam, insisting that he had to tell him something, but oft as not he would have forgotten what he meant to say by the time that Sam arrived. Even when he did recall, his talk was all a jumble. He spoke of dreams and never named the dreamer, of a glass candle that could not be lit and eggs that would not hatch. He said the sphinx was the riddle, not the riddler, whatever that meant. He asked Sam to read for him from a book by Septon Barth, whose writings had been burned during the reign of Baelor the Blessed. Once he woke up weeping. "The dragon must have three heads," he wailed, "but I am too old and frail to be one of them. I should be with her, showing her the way, but my body has betrayed me."

We could include a revisionist history for House Stark beginning with the destruction of all records of the Night's King.

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4 hours ago, LynnS said:

I would include the destruction of books with relevant knowledge:

We could include a revisionist history for House Stark beginning with the destruction of all records of the Night's King.

Its interesting that "everybody" seems to know about the existence of Nights King, which makes you wonder what was destroyed and why. Mind you there's also a contradiction in that he supposedly existed at a time when there were no records to destroy.

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7 hours ago, The Chequered Raven said:

But wouldn't this be way too much risky?

These knowlege is the source of the family's power, no one would risk to loose it by having just one or two persons know the secrets, especially in a world were sudden death is common, by war, sickness etc.

But that's the point, because its not simply a matter of remembering but understanding - the classic case being The Musgrave Ritual

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2 minutes ago, Black Crow said:

Its interesting that "everybody" seems to know about the existence of Nights King, which makes you wonder what was destroyed and why. Mind you there's also a contradiction in that he supposedly existed at a time when there were no records to destroy.

You have a point.  His name has been removed from all memory.  I'm not sure that's the same as the one who's name must not or cannot be spoken. 

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5 hours ago, Black Crow said:

Mind you there's also a contradiction in that he supposedly existed at a time when there were no records to destroy.

Well, there were runes on rocks, which in our world at least usually include names and primary events associated with the names.  

But runestones aside, it's still only a contradiction if the original myth mentioned records.  

And in the thousands of years that have gone by since the Night's King would have lived, the myth could have been changed significantly.  In fact, it definitely has been changed, judging by all the variations in which he is said to have been a Bolton or Umber or Flint, etc.

So there's no apparent way to know if in the original version, it mentioned records or if that was added later, at a time when the concept of records made more sense.

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17 hours ago, Matthew. said:

Happy new year, and that's a great observation about Rhaego--while it seems obvious enough that his life was traded to quicken the eggs, I'd never made the additional connection that he had, in a sense, traded 'states' with the dragons (long dead). That's the sort of weirdness that I can see Martin applying to his magic.

Actually, I think it is Mirri's sacrifice that hatches the black egg (the largest egg). I think we are talking about one dragon and one child specifically.  

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A Clash of Kings - Daenerys IV

Faster and faster the visions came, one after the other, until it seemed as if the very air had come alive. Shadows whirled and danced inside a tent, boneless and terrible. A little girl ran barefoot toward a big house with a red door. Mirri Maz Duur shrieked in the flames, a dragon bursting from her brow. Behind a silver horse the bloody corpse of a naked man bounced and dragged. A white lion ran through grass taller than a man. Beneath the Mother of Mountains, a line of naked crones crept from a great lake and knelt shivering before her, their grey heads bowed. Ten thousand slaves lifted bloodstained hands as she raced by on her silver, riding like the wind. "Mother!" they cried. "Mother, mother!" They were reaching for her, touching her, tugging at her cloak, the hem of her skirt, her foot, her leg, her breast. They wanted her, needed her, the fire, the life, and Dany gasped and opened her arms to give herself to them . . .

She is a god's wife or holy blood and I think whatever price she paid for her knowledge includes the value of her blood for sacrifice.  Melisandre essentially says also paid a terrible price for knowledge.  

Spoiler

I think this is supported by Euron collecting holy men for sacrifice and he specifically references holy blood in the Foresaken.

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A Game of Thrones - Daenerys VIII

Mirri Maz Duur sat back on her heels and studied Daenerys through eyes as black as night. "There is a spell." Her voice was quiet, scarcely more than a whisper. "But it is hard, lady, and dark. Some would say that death is cleaner. I learned the way in Asshai, and paid dear for the lesson. My teacher was a bloodmage from the Shadow Lands."

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A Dance with Dragons - Melisandre I

She made it sound a simple thing, and easy. They need never know how difficult it had been, or how much it had cost her. That was a lesson Melisandre had learned long before Asshai; the more effortless the sorcery appears, the more men fear the sorcerer. When the flames had licked at Rattleshirt, the ruby at her throat had grown so hot that she had feared her own flesh might start to smoke and blacken. Thankfully Lord Snow had delivered her from that agony with his arrows. Whilst Stannis had seethed at the defiance, she had shuddered with relief.

Melisandre isn't originally from Asshai and perhaps she was transformed by a bloodmage from the Shadow Lands as well.

At any rate, I think the black egg is unique and Drogon is compared to Balerion reborn.  One of three dragon gods of the Targs.  So I go back to this passage:

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A Storm of Swords - Daenerys III

That night she dreamt that she was Rhaegar, riding to the Trident. But she was mounted on a dragon, not a horse. When she saw the Usurper's rebel host across the river they were armored all in ice, but she bathed them in dragonfire and they melted away like dew and turned the Trident into a torrent. Some small part of her knew that she was dreaming, but another part exulted. This is how it was meant to be. The other was a nightmare, and I have only now awakened.

She woke suddenly in the darkness of her cabin, still flush with triumph. Balerion seemed to wake with her, and she heard the faint creak of wood, water lapping against the hull, a football on the deck above her head. And something else.

This is very suggestive.  We're talking about a ship called after a dragon god; but in the context of the dream, I think we are talking about whomever Dany resurrected.  It may be that the black dragon gives Dany protection from the fire and hatches the other eggs. 

Edit:  This leads me to speculation about R'hllor and the protection that he gives to Melisandre.  Melisandre insists that he exists and Jaqen H'gar swears an oath that includes him of fire.  So I think we are talking about another dragon god.  One that is chained:

Quote

 

A Dance with Dragons - Daenerys V

"Them, and dragons," said Brown Ben Plumm, with a grin.

"In the pit, in chains," wailed Reznak mo Reznak. "What good are dragons that cannot be controlled? Even the Unsullied grow fearful when they must open the doors to feed them."

A Dance with Dragons - Daenerys X

If she had not been so sick and scared, that might have come as a relief. Instead she began to shiver violently. She rubbed her fingers through the dirt, and grabbed a handful of grass to wipe between her legs. The dragon does not weep. She was bleeding, but it was only woman's blood. The moon is still a crescent, though. How can that be? She tried to remember the last time she had bled. The last full moon? The one before? The one before that? No, it cannot have been so long as that. "I am the blood of the dragon," she told the grass, aloud.

Once, the grass whispered back, until you chained your dragons in the dark.

 

Two of Dany's eggs may well be from Asshai by the shadow:

Quote

 

A Game of Thrones - Bran III

He lifted his eyes and saw clear across the narrow sea, to the Free Cities and the green Dothraki sea and beyond, to Vaes Dothrak under its mountain, to the fabled lands of the Jade Sea, to Asshai by the Shadow, where dragons stirred beneath the sunrise.

A Game of Thrones - Daenerys III

"Have you ever seen a dragon?" she asked as Irri scrubbed her back and Jhiqui sluiced sand from her hair. She had heard that the first dragons had come from the east, from the Shadow Lands beyond Asshai and the islands of the Jade Sea. Perhaps some were still living there, in realms strange and wild.

 

 

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6 hours ago, JNR said:

Well, there were runes on rocks, which in our world at least usually include names and primary events associated with the names.  

But runestones aside, it's still only a contradiction if the original myth mentioned records.  

And in the thousands of years that have gone by since the Night's King would have lived, the myth could have been changed significantly.  In fact, it definitely has been changed, judging by all the variations in which he is said to have been a Bolton or Umber or Flint, etc.

So there's no apparent way to know if in the original version, it mentioned records or if that was added later, at a time when the concept of records made more sense.

I'm not sure that speculation as to his name counts as changing the myth, especially if Old Nan was ramping up the story. If it has any meaning at all, and notwithstanding the prominence accorded to him in the mummers' version he is at best a marginal character in the book, I think it most likely that the erasing of any records may simply have been leaving a blank space in the already fictional list of Lord Commanders

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6 hours ago, Black Crow said:

I'm not sure that speculation as to his name counts as changing the myth, especially if Old Nan was ramping up the story.

It seems to me she is, probably accurately, reporting the current situation... which is that there are different versions of the story in the North, in which the Night's King originated with different families.    But each such version is certainly yet another change from the original.  It's been repeatedly changed over time.

This idea is, for all the myths in general, very well established in canon.  Here's another example:

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Hardhome had been halfway toward becoming a town, the only true town north of the Wall, until the night six hundred years ago when hell had swallowed it. Its people had been carried off into slavery or slaughtered for meat, depending on which version of the tale you believed

So different versions have emerged after only six hundred years of retelling -- far less time than the Night's King tale has had to evolve.  Here's another example:

Quote

 

"The dead do not rise," insisted Haldon Halfmaester, "and no man lives a thousand years. Yes, there is a Shrouded Lord. There have been a score of them. When one dies another takes his place. This one is a corsair from the Basilisk Islands who believed the Rhoyne would offer richer pickings than the Summer Sea."

"Aye, I've heard that too," said Duck, "but there's another tale I like better. The one that says he's not like t'other stone men, that he started as a statue till a grey woman came out of the fog and kissed him with lips as cold as ice."

 

This too is based on a relatively recent event, yet still there are different versions.  Suffice it to say the tale of the Night's King is almost certainly not the same in Westeros now as it was once.

6 hours ago, Black Crow said:

I think it most likely that the erasing of any records may simply have been leaving a blank space in the already fictional list of Lord Commanders

I agree that leaving the Night's King out of any such list would have been a part of what happened, if it happened at all, and if there was such a person.  Whether the lists are fictional, of course, we can't establish.

A bit more speculation.  If we believe that "Joramun of the wildlings" was indeed part of a true scenario of the Night's King, then the free folk (like those south of the Wall) would very likely have their own version (or versions) of the story too.  Which brings us back to this:

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"I'm Jon Snow."

She flinched. "An evil name."

"A bastard name," he said. "My father was Lord Eddard Stark of Winterfell."

Why did she flinch?  What's this about evil?  The concept of bastards doesn't really exist among the free folk, yet her reaction is quite a strong  and immediately negative one.

If a free folk version of the Night's King tale had him named Jon Snow, Ygritte's reaction just falls into place logically.

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33 minutes ago, JNR said:

A bit more speculation.  If we believe that "Joramun of the wildlings" was indeed part of a true scenario of the Night's King, then the free folk (like those south of the Wall) would very likely have their own version (or versions) of the story too.  Which brings us back to this:

Why did she flinch?  What's this about evil?  The concept of bastards doesn't really exist among the free folk, yet her reaction is quite a strong  and immediately negative one.

If a free folk version of the Night's King tale had him named Jon Snow, Ygritte's reaction just falls into place logically.

It do, but I suspect that in this case she's associating him with Ramsay Snow, who presumably has interesting ways of dealing with any raiders he might catch

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23 hours ago, JNR said:

A bit more speculation.  If we believe that "Joramun of the wildlings" was indeed part of a true scenario of the Night's King, then the free folk (like those south of the Wall) would very likely have their own version (or versions) of the story too.  Which brings us back to this:

Why did she flinch?  What's this about evil?  The concept of bastards doesn't really exist among the free folk, yet her reaction is quite a strong  and immediately negative one.

If a free folk version of the Night's King tale had him named Jon Snow, Ygritte's reaction just falls into place logically.

I agree.  Jon Snow knows nothing because the Wildlings maintain their own lore whereas the lore south of the Wall is adulterated or abnegated.

I think Ygritte is reacting to the name 'Jon Snow' rather than the bastard name or Ramsey's reputation.

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On 12/30/2017 at 11:42 AM, Black Crow said:

I suspect that in this case she's associating him with Ramsay Snow, who presumably has interesting ways of dealing with any raiders he might catch

He's certainly evil enough, but that's five hundred miles or so south of the Wall.  

I'm not sure, looking at a map, that they've gone anywhere near Bolton lands at any recent point -- the closest we can come in canon would be the great battle fought near Long Lake.  And that was two hundreds years or so back, when Sleepy Jack Musgrave... er, Musgood... let a free folk host slip past.

2 hours ago, LynnS said:

I think Ygritte is reacting to the name 'Jon Snow' rather than the bastard name

I think so too, and I wish Jon had followed up on this interesting point.  Evil is a pretty strong word.

I suppose it's asking too much of a middle-school kid, though.  He similarly failed to follow up when he decided Gilly had seen the Others because she knew their eyes are blue... even though Jon also knows their eyes are blue, and he has never seen one. 

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That's true, but what would the connection in her mind between evil (or the Night's King) and Bael the Bard have been?

What she says in summary of the Bael tale is:

Quote

So there it is—you have Bael's blood in you, same as me.

The apparent idea being: "You don't have to chop off my head, Jon, because we're related."  

In other words, I think she may initially have been reminded of the Night's King by the name Jon Snow, but other factors (her looming death) then seemed more important, so she switched mythological gears completely.  And even though Jon didn't believe it, it was still worth a shot.

Bael aside, we still have that interesting double reaction (flinch + "evil") on her part to account for and it's directly tied to Jon's name, whatever's behind it.  

As usual GRRM leaves us various possibilities; it might be he hadn't even imagined the Night's King when he wrote ACOK, and he had something else in mind there.

Or it might be that he was proactively dropping a clue about a mythical figure he was going to introduce in the next book... knowing people would find it on rereading, and finally realize what he'd been up to.  

If it's the second option, then I imagine we'll get confirmation of it later on, possibly via a Bran weirwood vision.   Any reference in ancient times to Jon Snow would stick out like a sore thumb to Bran, and to us.

ETA: Assuming there are future books in this series.

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I wasn't connecting the two, but rather pointing out that Ygritte doesn't connect them either. She comments that Snow or Jon Snow is en evil name and metaphorically shivers but doesn't refer to it again. Moreover she doesn't refer to "Jon Snow". He does when he introduces himself and when she reacts he assumes she is talking about the Snow surname rather than his full name:

"I'm Jon Snow."

She flinched. "An evil name."

"A bastard name," he said. "My father was Lord Eddard Stark of Winterfell."

Now you could argue that they were talking at cross-purposes but there's nothing to suggest it should be read that way. Its the Snow which is evil.

 

Gods, we're arguing pointless semantic here.

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21 hours ago, Black Crow said:

Now you could argue that they were talking at cross-purposes but there's nothing to suggest it should be read that way. Its the Snow which is evil.

It is in Jon's mind... because in his life, Snow signifies a bastard and a bastard is a terrible thing to be.

But is it in Ygritte's mind?  

That's what matters in context; she's the one talking about evil, and the free folk don't see bastards in remotely the same terms as Jon.  

So, yes, I think they were talking at cross-purposes.  She clearly has a context in mind that Jon lacks and never gets.

However, the next thing she learns is that Jon isn't just a bastard, but the bastard son of Eddard Stark... so her mind goes in a totally different direction, and that's exactly why Bael comes up.

This is very convenient for GRRM, that he drops a clue and never provides any supporting discussion... but it's also playing fair IMO.  I'm not at all surprised she would have shifted instantly from "that's an evil name" to "we're related, so if you kill me that makes you a kinslayer."

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On 12/30/2017 at 0:06 PM, JNR said:

Why did she flinch?  What's this about evil?  The concept of bastards doesn't really exist among the free folk, yet her reaction is quite a strong  and immediately negative one.

The simplest answer to this is the fact that the word "snow" itself carries obvious negative associations, north of the Wall.  See the following exchange between Jon and Sam in Whitetree, in which Jon reacts to Sam's talking ravens:

Quote

"Have you been teaching them to talk?" he asked Sam.

"A few words. Three of them can say snow."

"One bird croaking my name was bad enough," said Jon, "and snow's nothing a black brother wants to hear about." Snow often meant death in the north.

(Clash, Chapter 13)

"Snow often meant death in the north."  While there are no wildlings in that particular conversation... it's not hard to imagine Ygritte might flinch at the idea of naming a child with the word. Which is not to suggest there aren't other things happening in that later conversation with Ygritte.  But this is sort of the baseline interpretation, for me... snow is deadly, and the name "Snow" is correspondingly unfortunate. Possibly even evil.

 

On 12/29/2017 at 5:33 PM, Black Crow said:

Its interesting that "everybody" seems to know about the existence of Nights King, which makes you wonder what was destroyed and why. Mind you there's also a contradiction in that he supposedly existed at a time when there were no records to destroy.

I doubt anyone has ever known what records were destroyed... they just figure it must've happened, because key information re Night's King is missing. Otherwise, it's rather an odd thing to say - obviously, there are records of Night's King these days.  As Sam points out, you can read about him in "those old histories" studied at the Citadel:

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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… 

(AFFC, Chapter 4 - Samwell)

So if "all records of Night's King" were at some point destroyed, one wonders when (or where) that happened. Sounds like most of them have been rewritten, or replaced. Or were preserved elsewhere, maybe?  (Maybe the Andals just bashed all the "runes on rocks," back in the day?)

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