A Game of Souls: Beyond Fire and Blood

[hiemal]

Ice and fire: Ned's Soul

"Tyrion wondered where the metal for this one had come from. A few master armorers could rework old Valyrian steel, but the secrets of its making had been lost when the Doom came to old Valyria. "The colors are strange," he commented as he turned the blade in the sunlight. Most Valyrian steel was a grey so dark it looked almost black, as was true here as well. But blended into the folds was a red as deep as the grey. The two colors lapped over one another without ever touching, each ripple distinct, like waves of night and blood upon some steely shore. "How did you get this patterning? I've never seen anything like it."

"Nor I, my lord," said the armorer. "I confess, these colors were not what I intended, and I do not know that I could duplicate them. Your lord father had asked for the crimson of your House, and it was that color I set out to infuse into the metal. But Valyrian steel is stubborn. These old swords remember, it is said, and they do not change easily. I worked half a hundred spells and brightened the red time and time again, but always the color would darken, as if the blade was drinking the sun from it. And some folds would not take the red at all, as you can see."...ASoS

I think that when Tobo melted down Ice he applied enough heat for Ned's soul to be absorbed as Aegon I's was on his dragon-lit pyre. Or was it only partially absorbed because of inferior fire? I do think it is present in both blades- the names of both are fitting for Ned Stark and I think there is a connection between names and souls. And destinies. Drinking up Lannister red and pissing Stark grey seems like good ol' Ned. I'd like to think so anyways.

 

[ravenous reader]

57 minutes ago, hiemal said:

Ice and fire: Ned's Soul

I think that when Tobo melted down Ice he applied enough heat for Ned's soul to be absorbed as Aegon I's was on his dragon-lit pyre. Or was it only partially absorbed because of inferior fire? I do think it is present in both blades- the names of both are fitting for Ned Stark and I think there is a connection between names and souls. And destinies. Drinking up Lannister red in favor of Stark grey seems like good ol' Ned. I'd like to think so anyways.

For the purposes of the symbolism, blood and fire -- both RED -- are equivalent.  Ice drank Ned's blood when he was beheaded:

Quote

A Clash of Kings - Arya I

That night she lay upon her thin blanket on the hard ground, staring up at the great red comet. The comet was splendid and scary all at once. "The Red Sword," the Bull named it; he claimed it looked like a sword, the blade still red-hot from the forge. When Arya squinted the right way she could see the sword too, only it wasn't a new sword, it was Ice, her father's greatsword, all ripply Valyrian steel, and the red was Lord Eddard's blood on the blade after Ser Ilyn the King's Justice had cut off his head. Yoren had made her look away when it happened, yet it seemed to her that the comet looked like Ice must have, after.

I suspect the blade does not draw a distinction between drinking 'Lannister red' (a wine analogy) or 'Stark red'!  The vital thing is that it, like Lady Forlorn, 'has a thirst' for blood in general:

Quote

A Feast for Crows - Alayne I

"Sheathe your sword, Corbray," Young Lord Hunter echoed. "You shame us all with this."

"Come, Lyn," chided Redfort in a softer tone. "This will serve for nought. Put Lady Forlorn to bed."

"My lady has a thirst," Ser Lyn insisted. "Whenever she comes out to dance, she likes a drop of red."

Iron, besides being the main component of steel (such as in Valyrian steel), is the central element in the heme molecule, constituting hemoglobin, the oxygen-carrying pigment responsible for the 'red' appearance of the blood.  One of iron's oxidation states is black -- so you should think of 'red' and 'black' as interchangeable symbolically, denoting different states along the same continuum.  Once iron has been fired it goes from red-hot to smoky-grey-black.  Likewise, once blood is digested it has a black appearance.

Quote

"Black or red, a dragon is still a dragon."

ADWD -- Tyrion II

It's all 'fire and blood' you see?!

[hiemal]

2 hours ago, ravenous reader said:

2 hours ago, ravenous reader said:

For the purposes of the symbolism, blood and fire -- both RED -- are equivalent.  Ice drank Ned's blood when he was beheaded:

 

 

But I don't think it drank his soul until it was melted down.

2 hours ago, ravenous reader said:

 

It's all 'fire and blood' you see?!

I can't argue with that. I just think there is another element at play; one that is sometimes fire, as in Thoros' kiss and sometimes blood, as above. 

2 hours ago, ravenous reader said:

Iron, besides being the main component of steel (such as in Valyrian steel), is the central element in the heme molecule, constituting hemoglobin, the oxygen-carrying pigment responsible for the 'red' appearance of the blood.  One of iron's oxidation states is black -- so you should think of 'red' and 'black' as interchangeable symbolically, denoting different states along the same continuum.  Once iron has been fired it goes from red-hot to smoky-grey-black.  Likewise, once blood is digested it has a black appearance.

And there is "blue" blood, when the blood is starved of the oxygen so necessary for combustion and for life. The soul, if you will. Oxidation is the equivalent of soul transfer? The revivification of the Others removes soul energy, while that of R'hlorr enfuses it...

[sweetsunray]

On 23-11-2017 at 10:34 PM, hiemal said:

Ice and fire: Ned's Soul

"Tyrion wondered where the metal for this one had come from. A few master armorers could rework old Valyrian steel, but the secrets of its making had been lost when the Doom came to old Valyria. "The colors are strange," he commented as he turned the blade in the sunlight. Most Valyrian steel was a grey so dark it looked almost black, as was true here as well. But blended into the folds was a red as deep as the grey. The two colors lapped over one another without ever touching, each ripple distinct, like waves of night and blood upon some steely shore. "How did you get this patterning? I've never seen anything like it."

"Nor I, my lord," said the armorer. "I confess, these colors were not what I intended, and I do not know that I could duplicate them. Your lord father had asked for the crimson of your House, and it was that color I set out to infuse into the metal. But Valyrian steel is stubborn. These old swords remember, it is said, and they do not change easily. I worked half a hundred spells and brightened the red time and time again, but always the color would darken, as if the blade was drinking the sun from it. And some folds would not take the red at all, as you can see."...ASoS

I think that when Tobo melted down Ice he applied enough heat for Ned's soul to be absorbed as Aegon I's was on his dragon-lit pyre. Or was it only partially absorbed because of inferior fire? I do think it is present in both blades- the names of both are fitting for Ned Stark and I think there is a connection between names and souls. And destinies. Drinking up Lannister red and pissing Stark grey seems like good ol' Ned. I'd like to think so anyways.

 

The idea sounds appealing, except that Jon has a dream that includes Ned and a dead Ygritte, after Ice was already reforged, and in that dream Ned's face (and thus soul) is part of the wierwood tree at a pool (with 'maiden' Ygritte). This would suggest that Ned's soul is not in the sword, but in the weirnet (as already suggested in aCoK, when Arya hears Ned talk to her at HH's tree). You specifically made a distinction between soul as being non-phbysical, but now "the blood" that Ice drank would tie Ned's soul to the sword.

I would more argue then that Ice now has drank Ned's "personality" (his DNA/blood related character aspects) and that Ned's soul is still roaming the weirnet.

[hiemal]

3 hours ago, sweetsunray said:

 

I would more argue then that Ice now has drank Ned's "personality" (his DNA/blood related character aspects) and that Ned's soul is still roaming the weirnet.

That's an interesting distinction. It reminds me of the Egyptian fragmented soul; ka, ba... My own thinking is that soul is to some extant holographic- in Ned's case it would be in Oathkeeper, Widow's Wail, in the weirnet, and in other places as well- in the blood of his children, for example. When Bran skinchanges, part of his soul is leaves and part remains. Still a lot of squishiness in my "soul" definition.

[hiemal]

The definition of magic and of sacrifices/petitioning:

Magic is the direct manipulation of soul energy, usually moving it from one place to another for a specific purpose. A sacrifice of soul energy into a physical manifestation of the network (a fire, a weirwood, etc) can be used to petition the power behind that network. When Melisandre uses her pendant to project illusions she is practicing magic, when she burns people alive she is petitioning a Power, R'hlorr. The sorcerer who cut Varys probably did this. Blood shed on a glass candle would be fuel for magic instead of a petition, I think.

The weirwoods are petitioned through blood, obviously, but their magic is trickier. We read about the Hammer of Waters breaking the Arm of Dorne and as I've tinfoiled above I think it was also used in an earlier war with the Deep Ones. So... power over movements of the earth. This is the CotF part of the Lightbringer incident, I suspect.

Hiring a Faceless Man beside the Pool is a petition to the Many-Faced God. He takes faces of gold (blood money) and of skin, and I think they all have soul energy.

 

[LynnS]

I came across this curious statement by The Prophet and I wonder what you think it means:

Quote

A Feast for Crows - The Prophet

In the end the Golden Storm went down off Fair Isle during Balon's first rebellion, cut in half by a towering war galley called Fury when Stannis Baratheon caught Victarion in his trap and smashed the Iron Fleet. Yet the god was not done with Aeron, and carried him to shore. Some fishermen took him captive and marched him down to Lannisport in chains, and he spent the rest of the war in the bowels of Casterly Rock, proving that krakens can piss farther and longer than lions, boars, or chickens.

That man is dead. Aeron had drowned and been reborn from the sea, the god's own prophet. No mortal man could frighten him, no more than the darkness could . . . nor memories, the bones of the soul. The sound of a door opening, the scream of a rusted iron hinge. Euron has come again. It did not matter. He was the Damphair priest, beloved of the god.

Memories are the bones of the soul?

Quote

A Feast for Crows - The Prophet

Outside, beneath the snoring of his drowned men and the keening of the wind, he could hear the pounding of the waves, the hammer of his god calling him to battle. Aeron crept from his little shelter into the chill of the night. Naked he stood, pale and gaunt and tall, and naked he walked into the black salt sea. The water was icy cold, yet he did not flinch from his god's caress. A wave smashed against his chest, staggering him. The next broke over his head. He could taste the salt on his lips and feel the god around him, and his ears rang with the glory of his song. Nine sons were born from the loins of Quellon Greyjoy, and I was the least of them, as weak and frightened as a girl. But no longer. That man is drowned, and the god has made me strong. The cold salt sea surrounded him, embraced him, reached down through his weak man's flesh and touched his bones. Bones, he thought. The bones of the soul. Balon's bones, and Urri's. The truth is in our bones, for flesh decays and bone endures. And on the hill of Nagga, the bones of the Grey King's Hall .

Does this mean that weirwoods are the bones of the soul?

[hiemal]

2 hours ago, LynnS said:

I came across this curious statement by The Prophet and I wonder what you think it means:

Memories are the bones of the soul?

Does this mean that weirwoods are the bones of the soul?

Memories and personality as skeleton or fossil, parts that survive after the flesh is gone like Nagga's "bones". I think a follower of the Old Gods might say the "roots of memory"?

[LynnS]

10 minutes ago, hiemal said:

Memories and personality as skeleton or fossil, parts that survive after the flesh is gone like Nagga's "bones". I think a follower of the Old Gods might say the "roots of memory"?

And the trees are the repository of memories; the bones of the soul.  What is the soul of ice?

Quote

A Game of Thrones - Bran III

Finally he looked north. He saw the Wall shining like blue crystal, and his bastard brother Jon sleeping alone in a cold bed, his skin growing pale and hard as the memory of all warmth fled from him. And he looked past the Wall, past endless forests cloaked in snow, past the frozen shore and the great blue-white rivers of ice and the dead plains where nothing grew or lived. North and north and north he looked, to the curtain of light at the end of the world, and then beyond that curtain. He looked deep into the heart of winter, and then he cried out, afraid, and the heat of his tears burned on his cheeks.

Quote

A Game of Thrones - Bran IV

"You mean the Others," Bran said querulously.

"The Others," Old Nan agreed. "Thousands and thousands of years ago, a winter fell that was cold and hard and endless beyond all memory of man.

 

[hiemal]

1 hour ago, LynnS said:

And the trees are the repository of memories; the bones of the soul.  What is the soul of ice?

 

Hmmm- the weirnet is the repository of both direct experience through the faces and other instruments of exploration (ravens, CotF) as the memories that come along with soul energy flowing through them (which I think is somehow absorbed- the impression I got from accounts of the Old Gods is that memory and personality fade with time). I mentioned briefly that i think there will be some suspicious Ice "spires" in the Land of Always Winter- these would be the hypothetical foci for Icenet. Hmmmm.

White Wood and Black Stone: both weirwood and Oily Black Stone are extraterrestrial soul-energy foci.

[hiemal]

The Eyes: Windows of Soul Energy

Eye color seems very important to magical energy. Heterochromia and missing eyes as well. Aside from Symeon Star-Eyes, I think most missing eyes result in some form of heterochromia. Bloodraven's "root eye" being the most graphic example but I think each example of differing eye colors is significant, as is anyone with red eyes (albinism in humans doesn't usually produce red eyes, but blue I think?). Tyrion's green and black and Euron's blue and black seem significant. Does Tyrion have a connection with the Deep Ones? He does mention merlings being sighted near Lannisport and he found a manatee carcass in the castle's bowels. There are no examples of mismatched eyes involving the Valyrian purple are there? Shiera had blue and green, IIRC.

[hiemal]

How does elemental energy differ from soul energy? I suspect that elemental energy is fundamental to using soul energy. For example, I think the weirnet gathers sunlight (solar fire) for this purpose, possibly focused on the Isle of Faces in God's Eye. The Icenet probably works something like refrigeration, producing Ice by moving fire energy- decreasing it locally but putting it to work elsewhere. I'm not sure if the Deepnet works on tidal energy but I think the MFG's Darknet is probably powered by the moon's phases in some way. I think there might also be a kind of ersatz "shadow energy" or created by moving light in the same way that the Icenet moves fire and there could even be 'Void energy" contained in the Oily Black Stones.

[sweetsunray]

10 hours ago, hiemal said:

That's an interesting distinction. It reminds me of the Egyptian fragmented soul; ka, ba... My own thinking is that soul is to some extant holographic- in Ned's case it would be in Oathkeeper, Widow's Wail, in the weirnet, and in other places as well- in the blood of his children, for example. When Bran skinchanges, part of his soul is leaves and part remains. Still a lot of squishiness in my "soul" definition.

Thanks for clarifying... So, it's like a "presence" that can spread itself wide simultaneously in several locations and objects... For some reason I'm reminded of the vision that Lestat de Lioncourt has on how the spirit Enkil that is behind the origin of vampirism in Anne Rice's Vampire series: Enkil is this one giant spirit who manages to find a material tie with blood. As more vampires are made, he spreads wider, but also thinner, like a global webbing.

I do like how you point out that both Oathkeeper and Widow's Wail are words befitting Ned Stark... Or rather Oathkeeper sounds befitting to Ned Stark, whereas Catelyn and especially the almost mute LS and Widow's Wail seem a match to me.

2 hours ago, LynnS said:

Memories are the bones of the soul?

Nice catch.

Memories as the bones of the soul would imply that a soul's built on memories. It has these potential implications (possibily simultaneously)

• As long as someone is remembered their soul still exists or remains.
• As long as someone's memoribilia are kept, preserved or used their soul still exists, remains and can have some impact <=> destruction of the memoribilia and how someone is remembered destroys that soul, like Summer crunching on the marrow of wight bones that thereby cease to move.
• Animated corpses without memory are soulless. <=> Animated corpses with memory still have a soul

So, we have Ilyn Payne never washing Ned's blood from Ice. Because of this Ice is not just a "Stark VS sword" but becomes Ned's soul sword. The sword is drenched with the memory of Ned's beheading and how he tried to keep his oath and protect his daughters. Tywin tries to appropriate it, steal the VS sword and make it his house's, and thus destroy "the memory of Ned Stark, his beheading" and ultimately House Stark. But Ned's soul magic still sticks to the sword - like Bluebeard's wife snooped in the forbidden room and couldn't wash of the blood from her hands of his previous wives, thereby betraying she had been inside the forbidden room. Ned's "soul"/"blood" sticks to Ice, and refuses to leave or go away. 

In that sense it becomes very interesting what path Oathkeeper takes:

1. Tywin gives it to Jaime.
   1. The memory that Jaime has of Ned is his stern, judging gaze when Ned found him seated on the Iron Throne and Aerys's throat cut. Ned judged Jaime for an oathbreaker.
   2. Jaime doesn't keep the sword, nor does he personally seek Ned Stark's daughters.
   3. Instead he gives the sword to Brienne and gives her the quest to find Sansa and keep her safe.
2. Brienne accepts the sword and calls it Oathkeeper and leaves KL with it in search for Sansa, since Jaime told her that the Arya sent North is a fake Arya and truly is believed to be dead.
   1. Ned confessed to treason in order to protect and keep Sansa safe. Ultimately he did not have the power to protect her from harm, but his confession lured Arya to the square, which caused Yoren to find her there (because he was supposed to pick up her father) and Yoren rescued her on impulse. Almost in a magnified parallel Brienne starts out searching for Sansa to protect her (but is not the person to do so, and instead stumbles on the old trail about Arya.
   2. Brienne meets Gendry and she instinctively realizes it's important to speak to him, to tell him who his father is, etc... I find this interesting, because I do not believe Ned's thoughts about "broken promises" are about Jon, but in fact were about the promises he made to Robert as Robert lay dying and Ned was unable to keep. I actually think that both the letter he wanted to write and have Varys deliver and the idea to take Gendry to the Wall came from Ned Stark, and Varys agreed to it, in order to have Ned confess. (see penultimate section "Broken Promises" of my chthonic essay on Robert and Ned)
   3. It's especially interesting that Brienne's cheek gets chewed by Biter right in front of Gendry, while she carries Oathkeeper, possibly a sword infused with Ned's "soul" (or part of it). In references and homages and in other threads I have mentioned that Brienne's journey follows the schematics of Dante's voyage into Inferno. The criminals and sinners she meets along the way even follow the scheme of the outer least "wrong" circle to the most damned one. At the heart of the 9 circles of Dante's Inferno is Satan, imprisoned in a lake of ice. He has 3 heads with mouths of razor sharp teeth and he munches on the heads of the 3 worst sinners in history (until Dante's day): Judas Iscariot, Brutus adopted son of Caesar and his conspiritor. The 9th circle of hell is all about the sin of "oathbreaking" and "betrayal", including betraying guest right, but breaking the promise to your liege/lord/lady, or turning your coat politically. Betraying the lady she swore to is what Brienne ends up being accused about, and someone hellish chewing at her face/head in this "circle" is imo a sign that George does in a way indicate that in the eyes of the gods she has betrayed her vows - and she has at least through a shift of "intent". She's not searching for Cat's daughters for them or Cat as much as she searches them for Jaime's honor. So, to have the sword "Oathkeeper", with Ned's soul, around Gendry in a scene amplifies this conclusion of mine about Ned's broken promises being about "protecting Robert's children" and not his promised to Lyanna about Jon Snow (which he kept, imo, even though he likely did twist interpretations to his own preference).  If I'm correct then Ned's guilt about being unable to keep his word to Robert to keep Robert's son safe (Gendry) put Gendry on the road to Riverrun, and Brienne protects Gendry and the orphans with Oathkeeper. It is indeed this act of her that saves her life - Jane Heddle patches her up and the BwB keep her alive long enough at least so she can meet LS.
   4. In her initial travels beyond KL, Brienne comes across the High Sparrow with a cart full of bones of "Holy Men". I've argued in a theory essay that Hallis Mollen and the Silent Sisters turned away from Moat Cailin and the Neck, that Hallis Mollen and the Silent Sisters aren't patiently waiting at Greywater Watch, while Howland Reed entertains them (that's a red herring idea imo). Instead I think Hallis Mollen and the Silent Sisters decided to journey to a port in the Riverlands to reach the North by ship, which would either have been Saltpans or Maidenpool. Most hints, including Jon's dream of Ygritte in the pool with Ned's face on a weirwood, and Ygritte melting until only her "bones" are left suggest imo that Hallis Mollen and the Silent Sisters intended to take a ship to White Harbor at Maidenpool, but were attacked. Hence the "even silent sisters get raped" stories, the repeated mention of "bones" of Holy men... and thus Ned's bones "recirculated" back to King's Landing, Baelor's statue and Baelor's sept. (the extensive essay on this: https://sweeticeandfiresunray.com/2016/11/01/them-bones/).
3. Oathkeeper falls into LS's hands:
   1. We then have a reverse parallel: Tyrion sent Ned's bones to Catelyn without Ice (and this scene makes it easier to associate Catelyn with Isis, wife of killed Osiris). Catelyn sends Hallis and the Silent Sisters with the mission to get Ned's bones North, but as I posited, they end up being war victims and Ned's bones return back to KL in a cart as that of a Holy Man along with the High Sparrows, crossing paths with the sword that contains his oathkeeping soul, to eventually end up in LS's hands. With its golden pommel and Brienne thinking of it as a "magical sword" in the hands of a resurrected person we have Isis with Osiris's golden phallus. In the Isis-Osiris myth it's used to birth/create a king to avenge Osiris' murder and retake the stolen throne (conception of Horus). In aSoIaF, LS is motivated to see the Lannister lies undone, and her actions no doubt will be part of the action/reaction chain of events leading to men or boys taking the thrones and seats away from Lannisters and their allies (Freys and Boltons): Rickon, Jon and Gendry will all have a part to play with that. 

[hiemal]

Memories and the crunchy parts of soul food: the spiball/take

If memories (experience) are the bones, the flesh and its characteristics (personality as nature vs. memory as nurture) are the meat. The soul is the only means by which the non-linear-in-time-and-space soul networks and those who inhabit them can exert influence in the world beyond the physical manifestation of that network (weirwood trees, etc).

Hmmmm, memory is experience is a segment of linear time is fire. The personality and the flesh and all it heir too is a presence in the physical universe is blood.

[hiemal]

Soul Networks and Inhabiting Intelligences: The Gods

One of the main reasons I think that the weirnet is the original "soul cycle" is that it does not have a single, central Mind. I do have some tinfoils that it did have one at one time but this Mind became the Great Other in Lightbringer Incident (In this version, the Amethyst Empress and Nissa-Nissa are two different people as are BSE and Azor Ahai- not at all unlikely but more complicated so usually not mentioned ) when all of Essos' weirwoods are wiped out in a magical conflagration.

As for the rest, I think their brand of stolen immortality comes with some limitations, and that foremost among these is that they no longer exist in the universe they rely on for energy. They have "downloaded" their soul- temporal memories and spatial personality- into a matrix of elemental energy and physical matter; a pocket universe that exists like a "tumor dimension" (hmmmm, my "Stranger Things" and ASoIaF tinfoils are starting to merge) on reality that is not bound by the same Laws and can only be accessed under particular circumstances. This means an energy anchor in time and space, a soul- whether in use by a living being sworn to it or from... other sources offered up by means of elemental energy- sacrifice by burning in holy flame or disemboweling before the trees, for example.

In ordinary circumstances, the memory and personality of a soul do no extend far, 4-dimensionally, from the soul-energy it comes from. The more use to which this energy is put, the less distinct it is from what it once was, where it once was. A god has holographically imprinted themselves on the entire network, however. Jojen can peep into the weirnet and Bran presumably has more or less free access to it, probably up until the point in time/space when his ancestors first bought in and hypothetically until his line becomes extinct or the network is destroyed. R'hlorr is the Firenet, however. Whether it exists physically in the tectonic forces of the world or in fire itself (and then the tectonic network is the Gray King's/possibly Great Other after Nissa Nissa/AE) or in the red comet (either skinchanged solo or as a warring duality with the AE causing the dominance of Fire and Ice by where the Sun's energy falls on the comet) the immortality gained by "possessing" a soul network was a prime cause of the LB incident. That and dragonriders. Still trying to connect those.

[sweetsunray]

21 hours ago, hiemal said:

Memories and the crunchy parts of soul food: the spiball/take

If memories (experience) are the bones, the flesh and its characteristics (personality as nature vs. memory as nurture) are the meat. The soul is the only means by which the non-linear-in-time-and-space soul networks and those who inhabit them can exert influence in the world beyond the physical manifestation of that network (weirwood trees, etc).

Hmmmm, memory is experience is a segment of linear time is fire. The personality and the flesh and all it heir too is a presence in the physical universe is blood.

More memory-soul related examples for Ned.

Where does Arya hear Ned's voice talking to her? Through the weirwood of Harrenhal, where her father is somehow tied to the memory of the HH tourney and Knight of the Laughing Tree. Even more interestingly: initially, Ned's words are the words that Arya "remembers" her father telling her. It is only when she hears her father speak a second time that we get a shift to her father talking with Arya in the HH present about the KL conversation that Arya remembered of the past before his death. Clever trick of George into confusing the reader into assuming rationally that Arya's just remembering and not actually hearing Ned.

Jon's dream with Ygritte in the pool ties in with that "Maidenpool" idea of mine and how Ned's bones got lost. In any case, to Jon the weirwood with Ned's face is the WF weirwood, and the pool is the WF pool. It's a dream, but the naked woman in a pool and turning into mere bones while Ned's face has become a weirwood face definitely fits this "memory"-"bones"-"soul" triad.

Hmmmm... the blood makes me consider the different results of Drogo, Beric & Catelyn, and ice wights. Many suspect that Drogo's horse spirit got pushed into Drogo (and thus Drogo lost his soul, and instead was a horse's soul in human flesh). There was a blood sacrifice of the horse (and symbolically horses often do mirror their riders or aspects of them in the books), and shadows danced in the tent - so blood magic + shadowmagic. Physically Drogo seemed to be completely fine: any damage seemed to be gone. But the memory of who Drogo was seemed to be gone. Beric & Catelyn have trouble remembering their life and are vastly focused on their last missions, emotions and experiences of their life. So, they have a "soul" but one with "tunnel vision". While the damage "seals" (at least with Beric), it is still visible and present and a handicap or a dent or scar. But their blood runs somehow. Might be black blood, but it gets pumped around (I don't want to imagine how that at all works with LS's cut throat... I'm getting Monty Python & Holy Grail images when I follow that thoughtline). The wights under Others' control do not physically heal at all. There's not even scar tissue. The blood certainly doesn't run, but pools into the extremities (hands and feet) udner influence of gravity, and they don't seem to remember anything, other than perhaps muscle memory. Hence they are soulless. Beric and LS are called fire wights, but I'm pretty sure there's some weirwood related magic going on there, and they still have some memories, a personality too, and their blood doesn't pool into the extrimities like the ice wights.

In other words - blood and soul may be tied more than we think.

Maybe what's so damaging to Beric and LS is the fact that they are severely traumatized: the physical trauma is related to their emotional trauma. You can be as strong, confident or at peace with yourself as possible, but the moment you go through a severe physical trauma or shock this will impact you emotionally in a way you have no control over. The resulting emotion and behavior may differ greatly between individuals, but it will affect anyone. I suspect that is why their souls are so damaged. Worse, they can never truly recover from the soul trauma, because they don't truly heal, and thus their souls are "warped". 

[hiemal]

1 hour ago, sweetsunray said:

 

Maybe what's so damaging to Beric and LS is the fact that they are severely traumatized: the physical trauma is related to their emotional trauma. You can be as strong, confident or at peace with yourself as possible, but the moment you go through a severe physical trauma or shock this will impact you emotionally in a way you have no control over. The resulting emotion and behavior may differ greatly between individuals, but it will affect anyone. I suspect that is why their souls are so damaged. Worse, they can never truly recover from the soul trauma, because they don't truly heal, and thus their souls are "warped". 

I think of it in terms of soul transfer- that part of soul energy which is lost in death is replaced by elemental energy during resurrection so the "fire wights" take on traits of that system as their personality becomes diluted. Fire consumes but doesn't repair, so fire wights can eat but they do not heal except when resurrecting.

As you note, wights seem to be soulless, I think their soul energy is simply taken out and used by the one who raised them. Treeborgs physically meld with the weirnet and I think with at least some Drowned Men (Damphair and Patchface) their resurrection is more than just conventional CPR.

1 hour ago, sweetsunray said:

More Hmmmm... the blood makes me consider the different results of Drogo, Beric & Catelyn, and ice wights. Many suspect that Drogo's horse spirit got pushed into Drogo (and thus Drogo lost his soul, and instead was a horse's soul in human flesh). There was a blood sacrifice of the horse (and symbolically horses often do mirror their riders or aspects of them in the books), and shadows danced in the tent - so blood magic + shadowmagic. Physically Drogo seemed to be completely fine: any damage seemed to be gone. But the memory of who Drogo was seemed to be gone. Beric & Catelyn have trouble remembering their life and are vastly focused on their last missions, emotions and experiences of their life. So, they have a "soul" but one with "tunnel vision". While the damage "seals" (at least with Beric), it is still visible and present and a handicap or a dent or scar. But their blood runs somehow. Might be black blood, but it gets pumped around (I don't want to imagine how that at all works with LS's cut throat... I'm getting Monty Python & Holy Grail images when I follow that thoughtline). The wights under Others' control do not physically heal at all. There's not even scar tissue. The blood certainly doesn't run, but pools into the extremities (hands and feet) udner influence of gravity, and they don't seem to remember anything, other than perhaps muscle memory. Hence they are soulless. Beric and LS are called fire wights, but I'm pretty sure there's some weirwood related magic going on there, and they still have some memories, a personality too, and their blood doesn't pool into the extrimities like the ice wights.

In other words - blood and soul may be tied more than we think.

 

Oh yes. I suspect the usurpation of the weirwood network in Essos that created the Firenet and its wights is a perversion of the cycle of nature- of the Mysteries of death and rebirth- and may have caused the Malady of the Seasons (curse you, GRRMverse chronology! I don't know if current events represent the second or third cycle) and almost certainly caused the Long Night. It would not surprise me if both forces (Fire and Icenets) were created in the same event, so I postulate counterbalance with my Nissa-Nissa as Night's Queen (although the Gray King is my runner-up for Great Other), and undead ice wights as the Icenet's cheating-death ploy.  The repetition of prophecies and events, the uncertainty of the seasons, the stutter of death- it's all related.

/points fratically at an imaginary wall cluttered with scraps of paper and thumbtacks and tinfoil and tinfoil and tinfoil

[LynnS]

On 11/25/2017 at 7:05 PM, sweetsunray said:

Memories as the bones of the soul would imply that a soul's built on memories. It has these potential implications (possibily simultaneously)

I'm reminded that Beric loses memory every time he's resurrected and has reached a point where he can no longer be resurrected.  It's memory that animates the soul; supports it like bones support the body, otherwise the body would be inanimate and soul-less like ice wights or Drogo. 

  There is also the strange business of the faces of the HoB&W.  Bones are not involved with retaining memory; but the face, someone's pyhsical identity contains the last memories.  I do agree that blood contains a portion of the soul.  Blood sacrifice and consuming blood is equivalent to soul-eating or a transference of some kind.  Mirri Maaz Duur invokes the strength of the horse, to go into the man during her ritual.  Ned's soul or ghost makes an appearance at Winterfell to Bran and Rickon; so what has the sword taken from Ned?    

[hiemal]

Working definition of Soul, Soul Energy, Soul Cycle and Magic:

(Starting with the weirnet system because I think it is the original from which all others are derived)

Soul energy flows into and out of weirwood trees in a "natural" cycle. Into the weirnet, a meta-reality sustained by a matrix of elemental energy and elemental matter- solar fire and the elements of the growing earth- that is not linear in time or space- by means of the "radio antennae" weirwood trees with their attendant psychopomps. Into the the "roots" of the Soul Cycle. While outside the weirnet, in the physical world, soul energy exists as a soul when it has a nature and a history, personality and memory and it represents a four-dimensional presence in the "real" world for the weirnet. Information and some form of energy can move between embodied souls (skinchanging, for example). The weirwood Soul Cycle is the system that supports this process of souls going into and out of living things and the weirnet. Magic is taking this soul energy and redirecting it by use of elemental energy and elemental matter- Fire and Blood, for example. All of the other Soul Cycles are probably perversions of this system, using different physical foci and providing different manifestations of power as well as being inhabited by guiding Intelligences (gods) that do not take part in the cycle directly but direct it for their own purposes.

 

[hiemal]

The Targaryens: Souls, Fire, Blood, and the Dragon with Three Heads

I've long speculated that the Targaryens are the slaves of prophecy and now I further tinfoil that these shackles can be understood as the Fire, Memory, Experience, History, Elemental Energy, Temporal Dynamic and the Blood part of the Targaryen's words is literally embodied in the Blood, Personality, Essential Nature, Elemental Matter, Spatial Dynamic. Or something like that.

Anyways- Perhaps too much attention has been paid to the idea that the Heads of the Dragon all represent Tagryens. What if the three heads refers to three branches of the Dragon- the main body having grown new heads named Blackfyre and Brightflame. It's all about the getting the Blood to the right Fire, putting the right physical manistations of Prophecy and Power- fire and blood- into play to put right what was put wrong in the Lightbringer incident(and possibly the Nagga incident). I think much of the Targaryens' erratic behavior is cased by this Fire driving some mad with future visions they were unable to cope with while others may have simply appeared mad, or despicable, due to the whip of Prophecy driving them to do things to bring about an End that wouldn't come sometimes for centuries and that therefore made no sense those around them. Fire governs prophecy and magics of the mind.

Blood carries the physical nature of being as opposed to Fire's spark/breath. It is therefore blood that is used to physically bind things magically. I think the important thing in Targaryen blood is their bond with Dragons, apparently deep enough to cause occasional soul transfers resulting in draconic stillbirths (although whether or not this happens without outside interference is unknown). Obviously something else is needed in the Blood, however. and so the Targs bred outside the Blood largely to try and get it, I think, when the Heads come together it could be unrelated to dragons and dragonriding, at least directly. IIRC when GRRM began the project he wasn't going to any living dragons at all so it could be red herring? Also, there is a third Targ VS sword that Rhaenyra died before claiming and Aegon fused into the Iron Throne. No real reason to believe that. but the asymmetry of Blackfyre and Dark Sister bugs me. Or could the third Targ VS sword have melted down to create a more suitable item for Rhaenyra, Rhaegar's "silver" harp?

I still put my money on Dany, Jon, and Tyrion but its something to think about if you feel like really complicating things.

Oh, and brand spankin' new: Ametheyst Empress and Bloodstone Emperor were twins, like Cersei and Jaimie.