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Heresy 204; of cabbages, prophecies and kings


Black Crow

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44 minutes ago, LynnS said:

The text is from the very beginning before Varamyr is killed and goes into One Eye.  He's warging One-Eye while Thistle is caring for him and the pack attacks another group of wildlings in another place.  He's isn't warging the other wolves or bending them to his will; but he can see through their eyes.  They follow One-Eye because he is the pack leader on a blood trail.

Varamyr's experience as a warg is described in much the same way as you would expect in Jon or Bran's wolf dreams except for the small voice that tells the warg/wolf what to do rather than follow it's own instincts.

So I wonder if the blue-eyed lot is controlled in a similar manner, acting like a pack on a blood trail following a leader who directs the wights in the same manner as the small voice directs One-Eye.  Something that can also see through the eyes of the pack at the same time.

The wights seem to be mindless responding only to the smell of hot blood and yet Othor and Jafr were on a mission.

At the end of Varamyr's chapter; he watches as the dead are turned to wights and they all turn and look at One-Eye.  His last thought is 'she sees me'.  He's referrring to Thistle, but I wonder if he is referring to whatever is controlling the wights.  If the wights are warged/skinchanged and a skinchanger can recognize another skinchanger inside their host familiar; then is the presence inside Thistle a female?

      

I think a lot of the problems with figuring out how the wights "work" comes from assuming that all of them are are being controlled at the same time. In fact I rather think its much simpler and more straightforward in that ordinarily they are under no form of control other than a compulsion to seek out the warm stink of life. They may want it for themselves but in taking it destroy it, but essentially they are indeed dead and neither thinking nor being controlled.

However, being dead, its easy for individuals to be warged/taken over as and when required for a particular purpose.

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5 hours ago, LynnS said:

At the end of Varamyr's chapter; he watches as the dead are turned to wights and they all turn and look at One-Eye.  His last thought is 'she sees me'.  He's referrring to Thistle, but I wonder if he is referring to whatever is controlling the wights.  If the wights are warged/skinchanged and a skinchanger can recognize another skinchanger inside their host familiar; then is the presence inside Thistle a female?

This is precisely how I read that passage as well. Note also that she isn't seeing him with her physical eyes:
 

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And in the pits where her eyes had been, a pale blue light was flickering, lending her coarse features an eerie beauty they had never known in life.

She sees me.

The thing that is controlling Thistle is 'seeing' Varamyr inside of One Eye; one skinchanger recognizing another.

I agree that the wights are being lead as packs, which would fit particularly well if speculation linking House Stark and the Others proves correct. More speculatively, there's two other lines I've posted here in the past that I think might point subtly to a connection between the sorcery of the Others and the sorcery of the CotF, as well as the weirwood:

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Outside, the night was white as death; pale thin clouds danced attendance on a silver moon, while a thousand stars watched coldly. He could see the humped shapes of other huts buried beneath drifts of snow, and beyond them the pale shadow of a weirwood armored in ice. 

(strongly reminds me of references to the Others as 'white shadows')

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Below, the world had turned to ice. Fingers of frost crept slowly up the weirwood, reaching out for each other. The empty village was no longer empty. Blue-eyed shadows walked amongst the mounds of snow.

(the sorcerous cold creeps up from below, reaching out through the weirwood)

In general, I think Varamyr's prologue is a real tone-setter for some of the lore stuff.

Edit: Scratch some of that, I think I incorrectly remembered the meal that Meera, Jojen, Bran, and Hodor share with Coldhands in Bran I. I was certain it was implied that Bran and co. were eating a NW deserter that they were telling themselves was pork, but I don't feel like re-reading the chapter to confirm the full context.

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I like to visualize magic as working similar to a virus that is carried on the cold winds infecting the dead and animating the spirit within the bones. The "bones remember" their previous life and so some of their actions reflect that past knowledge. That being said it does seem like they are being herded up and directed. IMO the white walkers bring the cold, and it's the cold that moves the wights, so whoever made or control the white walkers indirectly control the wights.

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12 hours ago, LynnS said:

It's been done.

In a sense... 

Actually, it might be interesting -- based on recent rumors published on Reddit that appear quite credible to me -- to look in TWOW for evidence of GRRM's ongoing conflict with D&D.

After all, we know GRRM is fond of "murdering" real-world entities via counterparts in his books. (Probably the classic instance is the Dallas Cowboys, who were symbolically ripped apart by Wun Wun in the last book in the form of victim Ser Patrek Mallister.)

So if in TWOW there are two linked entities with names beginning with D... and those entities come to a horrible fate, such as being eaten by a wighted kraken... I won't be too shocked.

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30 minutes ago, Matthew. said:

Outside, the night was white as death; pale thin clouds danced attendance on a silver moon, while a thousand stars watched coldly. He could see the humped shapes of other huts buried beneath drifts of snow, and beyond them the pale shadow of a weirwood armored in ice. 

This reminds me of BR telling Bran that once a greenseer has gone into the weirwood, they linger long.... a thousand (starry) eyes, a hundred skins.  This also comes after BR explains how the cotf are selected as greenseers.

30 minutes ago, Matthew. said:

(the sorcerous cold creeps up from below, reaching out through the weirwood)

the cold gods?

 

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12 minutes ago, JNR said:

In a sense... 

Actually, it might be interesting -- based on recent rumors published on Reddit that appear quite credible to me -- to look in TWOW for evidence of GRRM's ongoing conflict with D&D.

After all, we know GRRM is fond of "murdering" real-world entities via counterparts in his books. (Probably the classic instance is the Dallas Cowboys, who were symbolically ripped apart by Wun Wun in the last book in the form of victim Ser Patrek Mallister.)

So if in TWOW there are two linked entities with names beginning with D... and those entities come to a horrible fate, such as being eaten by a wighted kraken... I won't be too shocked.

LOL!

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30 minutes ago, Matthew. said:

Below, the world had turned to ice. Fingers of frost crept slowly up the weirwood, reaching out for each other. The empty village was no longer empty. Blue-eyed shadows walked amongst the mounds of snow.

This sounds more like white walkers to me.

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49 minutes ago, Brad Stark said:

Who is controlling the wights?

Per my last I doubt whether anyone [or anything] is controlling the wights per se.

We've noted the example of Othor and Jafer, Small Paul and [probably] Thistle, but they are individuals and being dead its relatively much easier for someone to take over their bodies as there's nobody home to stop them, or at least fight as Thistle did while she was still alive. The rest are just... wights and if they appear at times to act in concert that's presumably some kind of herd instinct rather than a control net - otherwise why would they need Craster's boys riding herd,

As to who; apart from the latter, I would say that the most likely answer is the trees - ruling out Bloodraven because he's no longer an individual but only appears that way in communicating with Bran, because that still requires an intermediary.

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4 minutes ago, Black Crow said:

Per my last I doubt whether anyone [or anything] is controlling the wights per se.

We've noted the example of Othor and Jafer, Small Paul and [probably] Thistle, but they are individuals and being dead its relatively much easier for someone to take over their bodies as there's nobody home to stop them, or at least fight as Thistle did while she was still alive. The rest are just... wights and if they appear at times to act in concert that's presumably some kind of herd instinct rather than a control net - otherwise why would they need Craster's boys riding herd,

As to who; apart from the latter, I would say that the most likely answer is the trees - ruling out Bloodraven because he's no longer an individual but only appears that way in communicating with Bran, because that still requires an intermediary.

I would agree with this since the wights in front of BR's cave are basically inert until Bran and co arrive.  The trees might be 'seeing' through the eyes of the wights and occasionally they are skinchanged for a purpose or directed with a voice.  But primarily they are a pack of hounds on a blood trail.  

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1 hour ago, Matthew. said:

Below, the world had turned to ice. Fingers of frost crept slowly up the weirwood, reaching out for each other. The empty village was no longer empty. Blue-eyed shadows walked amongst the mounds of snow.

I'm reminded of the white walker who comes for Samwell:

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A Storm of Swords - Samwell I

The lower branches of the great green sentinel shed their burden of snow with a soft wet plop. Grenn spun, thrusting out his torch. "Who goes there?" A horse's head emerged from the darkness. Sam felt a moment's relief, until he saw the horse. Hoarfrost covered it like a sheen of frozen sweat, and a nest of stiff black entrails dragged from its open belly. On its back was a rider pale as ice. Sam made a whimpery sound deep in his throat. He was so scared he might have pissed himself all over again, but the cold was in him, a cold so savage that his bladder felt frozen solid. The Other slid gracefully from the saddle to stand upon the snow. Sword-slim it was, and milky white. Its armor rippled and shifted as it moved, and its feet did not break the crust of the new-fallen snow.

I'm not sure that the white walker has been trailing Sam all this time or was exuded from a sentinel tree in a soft wet plop.

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A Dance with Dragons - Bran II

No, thought Bran, but all those yards are upward. The hill was steep and thickly wooded. The snow had stopped three days ago, but none of it had melted. Beneath the trees, the ground was blanketed in white, still pristine and unbroken. "No one's here," said Bran, bravely. "Look at the snow. There are no footprints."

"The white walkers go lightly on the snow," the ranger said. "You'll find no prints to mark their passage." A raven descended from above to settle on his shoulder. Only a dozen of the big black birds remained with them. The rest had vanished along the way; every dawn when they arose, there had been fewer of them. "Come," the bird squawked. "Come, come."

Going lightly on the snow reminds me of Jaqen's oath to Arya when he swears by sea and air.  I think this is another way of saying Storm God since storms are a combination of sea and air. Perhaps the White Walkers are also a combination of frozen water and air; manufactured by the Storm Gods.  They can run on top of the 'sea' just as Howland Reed can run on leaves.

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11 minutes ago, Feather Crystal said:

Lets not forget the wights have only been reported as rising at night. 

That is true too.  They seem to be powered by moonlight or they are powerless by daylight.  I'm not sure if the white walker comes for Sam during the day though or at dusk.

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50 minutes ago, LynnS said:

That is true too.  They seem to be powered by moonlight or they are powerless by daylight.  I'm not sure if the white walker comes for Sam during the day though or at dusk.

I think it's more of a practical necessity to avoid sunlight, because maybe even if it's cold the sun could still melt the ice? If that is the case then I think this might be considered evidence that the wights are moved by the white walkers...but it doesn't answer who the white walkers are.

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I was rereading some of the GRRM SSMs and came across one where George compared Bran to Pinocchio. He said the cricket was Pinocchio's conscience and when he didn't want to listen to it he smashed the cricket. I think this is just in the book version and not the Disney movie, but he likened that cruel and misbehaving childish attitude to Bran. Was Jojen Bran's Jiminy Cricket? :wacko: Furthermore, Pinocchio is executed at the end and hung in a tree by a fox and cat.

What's most interesting about the original, more darker story, is that Pinocchio is a wooden marionette controlled by strings even though he has the ability to be animated and move independently.

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31 minutes ago, Feather Crystal said:

I was rereading some of the GRRM SSMs and came across one where George compared Bran to Pinocchio. He said the cricket was Pinocchio's conscience and when he didn't want to listen to it he smashed the cricket. I think this is just in the book version and not the Disney movie, but he likened that cruel and misbehaving childish attitude to Bran. Was Jojen Bran's Jiminy Cricket? :wacko: Furthermore, Pinocchio is executed at the end and hung in a tree by a fox and cat.

What's most interesting about the original, more darker story, is that Pinocchio is a wooden marionette controlled by strings even though he has the ability to be animated and move independently.

I believe @The Fattest Leech has a nice thread-theory about this that you might like...

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4 hours ago, Black Crow said:

Per my last I doubt whether anyone [or anything] is controlling the wights per se.

We've noted the example of Othor and Jafer, Small Paul and [probably] Thistle, but they are individuals and being dead its relatively much easier for someone to take over their bodies as there's nobody home to stop them, or at least fight as Thistle did while she was still alive. The rest are just... wights and if they appear at times to act in concert that's presumably some kind of herd instinct rather than a control net - otherwise why would they need Craster's boys riding herd,

As to who; apart from the latter, I would say that the most likely answer is the trees - ruling out Bloodraven because he's no longer an individual but only appears that way in communicating with Bran, because that still requires an intermediary.

Orthor and Jafer go after specific targets after being lifeless or appearing to be.  Almost as if someone warged their dead bodies.  This could be an ancient greenseer in the trees yet to be introduced, but knowing GRRM, it is a character we've met.

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17 hours ago, Brad Stark said:

GRRM has talked about Gandalf coming back from the dead, and how wrong it was he was unchanged.   He's hinted Lady Stoneheart is foreshadowing.   An important character is going to die and come back, and I think the third holy-shit moment is when people realize they aren't Gandalf the White.  

I am convinced D&D believe L+R=J and the mummers version loses something if they try to back track.  That doesn't GRRM isn't planning a twist, just that the twist isn't central to the mummers version and like so many other things, simplified to fit the plot in 6 more episodes.  

A twist on L+R=J isn't a holy shit moment.  If it looks obvious in a murder mystery that the Butler is the killer, and we know the time will come when we find out if he is or not, we expect that, so neither answer can be that big a surprise.  If anything, the obvious mystery is there to focus on while the author sets up the big surprise with something else.

Yea, it seems to be the general consensus that Jon's parentage isn't a holy shit moment.  Even though I think there will be a lot of holy shits coming from the mouths of the fanbase if it doesn't turn out to be their prince charming.  

Perhaps the holy shit moment at the very end, may be in the form of a Long Night creating comet strike, and the existence of a Dream of Spring may be GRRM's little joke on us.

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1 hour ago, Brad Stark said:

Orthor and Jafer go after specific targets after being lifeless or appearing to be.  Almost as if someone warged their dead bodies.  This could be an ancient greenseer in the trees yet to be introduced, but knowing GRRM, it is a character we've met.

Or no-one insofar as we may never know

And as this is post 400, that seems a good moment to pass to Heresy 205. See you all over there.

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