Heresy 206: of Starks and Walls

[Black Crow]

12 hours ago, JNR said:

 There's no reason visions always have to be of specific people; some of them may be of broader, more abstract concepts, like the concept you suggested: corrupt knighthood.

For instance, in the same chapter, Bran sees dragons stirring beneath the sunrise in Asshai.  Is that a reference to actual dragons, in the past or present or future?  Or does it refer to a more abstract concept, of which dragons are only a symbol?

Indeed, although Bran "sees" real things at the outset, it is still only a vision and more abstract as he "rises" higher. Although that vision contains what may be important clues, as in the House of the Undying it should not be taken literally and may actually be deceptive.

He sees the familiar activity in Winterfell itself - presumably a true picture

He seas [sorry] the galley and the approaching storm - which we [and later presumably he] will learn independently to be true

So when he sees the dragons and more importantly is told he must do something about the Heart of Winter that's got to be true too - hasn't it?

[Black Crow]

1 hour ago, Black Crow said:

Well you do realise that the real villains behind all of this are not the Tree-huggers, or the Red Lot but the bankers 

Seriously though, if this is a conflict which has been waged since time began the real protagonists are likely to be far more deeply embedded than Captain Pugwash or anybody else, rather we need to be keeping an eye on those who have been promised, because whatever has been prophecied its unlikely that they will be following the script

[LynnS]

3 hours ago, Black Crow said:

Well you do realise that the real villains behind all of this are not the Tree-huggers, or the Red Lot but the bankers 

I believe it.

 

[Melifeather]

14 hours ago, LynnS said:

Mark Gatiss is brilliant!  I love this version of Sherlock.  He has a bit part in GoT as a representative of the Iron Bank. 

OMG it is him! I didn’t notice before! He is quite good as Mycroft! I loved how Sherlock depicted Mycroft in his “mind palace” as obscenely fat and loving it. Lol

[LynnS]

49 minutes ago, Feather Crystal said:

OMG it is him! I didn’t notice before! He is quite good as Mycroft! I loved how Sherlock depicted Mycroft in his “mind palace” as obscenely fat and loving it. Lol

Mark Gatiss is co-creator of Sherlock.  He knows the original material inside and out.  So he not only writes and directs but acts as well.  I think he's brilliant.  The commentaries are interesting and hilarious. 

[JNR]

On 3/18/2018 at 5:12 PM, Black Crow said:

The "real" Sherlock only ever had his cleverer elder brother Mycroft

Yes, the Holmes canon is as clearly distinct from the (good but oddly different) BBC show as the ASOIAF canon is from the (once good, now unforgivably bad and wildly inaccurate) show.  

Though I also agree with Feather it's interesting seeing the creative choices the BBC has made (example: making Irene Adler a dominatrix).

[JNR]

13 hours ago, Black Crow said:

So when he sees the dragons and more importantly is told he must do something about the Heart of Winter that's got to be true too - hasn't it?

Well, I think it's all true in some sense.  I'm just not sure exactly which bits are literal and which are symbolic.

For instance, in the bit you mention, Bran sees this:

Quote

He saw the bones of a thousand other dreamers impaled upon their points.

This seems like certain symbolism to me; I don't believe the uttermost north has literal impaled corpses of literal dreamers.

And of course, the crow itself has three eyes in the dream... but we all accept that it is a dream avatar, a symbol, and there is no literal crow with three literal eyes.

But as you point out, there are aspects that are pretty evidently literal.  So GRRM seems to be mixing literalism and symbolism into a tossed dream salad and serving it up with Ambiguity Dressing, as he does in so many other areas of the canon as well.

As for the dragons I draw no firm conclusion.  But I do think whether there is a symbolic or literal idea there, we are given a direct link between dragons and Asshai that is sure to have significance down the road.  

(And Asshai being the most distant, unfamiliar location known to anybody in Westeros, this accords pretty well with a classical Heretical interpretation: the basically foreign nature of dragons to Westeros and by extension, the foreign nature of Targaryens too.)

[Black Crow]

9 hours ago, JNR said:

Well, I think it's all true in some sense.  I'm just not sure exactly which bits are literal and which are symbolic.

For instance, in the bit you mention, Bran sees this:

This seems like certain symbolism to me; I don't believe the uttermost north has literal impaled corpses of literal dreamers.

And of course, the crow itself has three eyes in the dream... but we all accept that it is a dream avatar, a symbol, and there is no literal crow with three literal eyes.

But as you point out, there are aspects that are pretty evidently literal.  So GRRM seems to be mixing literalism and symbolism into a tossed dream salad and serving it up with Ambiguity Dressing, as he does in so many other areas of the canon as well.

As for the dragons I draw no firm conclusion.  But I do think whether there is a symbolic or literal idea there, we are given a direct link between dragons and Asshai that is sure to have significance down the road.  

I think that's the whole point. Bran isn't literally sitting up on a cloud with a powerful telescope actually seeing these things for real. He starts off with the mundane so that the dreamers and the dragons  follow logically on and therefore become believable, but at the end of the day the Devil is taking Jesus to the mountain-top and showing him the world. The impaled dreamers are the failed candidates who came before Bran. the Prince who has been promised/awaited for so long. The dragons stirring may be Danaerys' ones. Trouble is building and I still hold that what Bran eventually sees in the Heart of Winter isn't an Army of the Damned but the future; the battle between Ice and Fire and it aint going to be pretty, but his role or rather his true role isn't clear and like the Devil the Three-eyed-crow may be practicing to deceive.

[SirArthur]

So, was the a Game of Thrones prologue literal or symbolical ? Because if it was literal we have to assume the Other from the prologue and his 12 shadows are out there and taking part in the story. 

[Black Crow]

29 minutes ago, SirArthur said:

So, was the a Game of Thrones prologue literal or symbolical ? Because if it was literal we have to assume the Other from the prologue and his 12 shadows are out there and taking part in the story. 

There's no reason at all to suppose that the prologue didn't happen for real.

As to Craster's boys, there were only six not the 13 who later appeared in the mummers version. As to whether they are still out there, there's once again no reason not to suppose they are still a shadowy presence in the woods and for all that we know one may have been the unfortunate Ser Puddles.

There is however another and altogether more intriguing possibility in that mention was made earlier of the possibility that Gared didn't escape but was spared in order to lead the she-wolf through the Black Gate in order to deliver the pups to Winterfell - six pups, just as there were six walkers in a story of skin-changing.

[LynnS]

29 minutes ago, Black Crow said:

There's no reason at all to suppose that the prologue didn't happen for real.

As to Craster's boys, there were only six not the 13 who later appeared in the mummers version. As to whether they are still out there, there's once again no reason not to suppose they are still a shadowy presence in the woods and for all that we know one may have been the unfortunate Ser Puddles.

There is however another and altogether more intriguing possibility in that mention was made earlier of the possibility that Gared didn't escape but was spared in order to lead the she-wolf through the Black Gate in order to deliver the pups to Winterfell - six pups, just as there were six walkers in a story of skin-changing.

Of course I wonder how Gared was led to the Black Gate and who gave him the words to open it.  That seems like a job for Coldhands who at least speaks the same language as Gared.

[SirArthur]

31 minutes ago, Black Crow said:

As to Craster's boys, there were only six not the 13 who later appeared in the mummers version. As to whether they are still out there, there's once again no reason not to suppose they are still a shadowy presence in the woods and for all that we know one may have been the unfortunate Ser Puddles

Will saw six in the prologue. Have there been more ? We can read it as 6 hitting over and over. Or twelve hitting one time. 

The watchers moved forward together, as if some signal had been given. Swords rose and fell, all in a deathly silence. It was cold butchery. The pale blades sliced through ringmail as if it were silk. Will closed his eyes. Far beneath him, he heard their voices and laughter sharp as icicles.

Royce's body lay facedown in the snow, one arm outflung. The thick sable cloak had been slashed in a dozen places. Lying dead like that, you saw how young he was. A boy.

[Melifeather]

Gared was a man of the Watch and should know the words. He only needed to be told just like Sam.

The mummers version is an interpretation of GRRM's broad strokes with combined story lines, so there may be some small nugget of truth in their use of the 13 Others in their version. While I don't believe the 6 in the books are some of the same that existed thousands of years ago, the 13 may be symbolic of something that I suspect - that the Last Hero died just like his 12 companions, and his resurrection to an undead life is the mistake the Children felt they made all those years ago.

[SirArthur]

12 minutes ago, LynnS said:

Of course I wonder how Gared was led to the Black Gate and who gave him the words to open it.  That seems like a job for Coldhands who at least speaks the same language as Gared.

I still wonder why Gared stayed back with the horses.

[Black Crow]

9 minutes ago, SirArthur said:

I still wonder why Gared stayed back with the horses.

There were only ever six which is why I was puzzled at your mention of 12 shadows 

[Black Crow]

10 minutes ago, SirArthur said:

I still wonder why Gared stayed back with the horses.

Somebody had to

[LynnS]

3 hours ago, Feather Crystal said:

Gared was a man of the Watch and should know the words. He only needed to be told just like Sam.

 

I guess I wonder if the Watch knows about the Black Gate and how to open it after 200 years.  Coincidently, that was the last time a direwolf was seen south of the Wall.

[redriver]

3 hours ago, Feather Crystal said:

Gared was a man of the Watch and should know the words. He only needed to be told just like Sam.

The mummers version is an interpretation of GRRM's broad strokes with combined story lines, so there may be some small nugget of truth in their use of the 13 Others in their version. While I don't believe the 6 in the books are some of the same that existed thousands of years ago, the 13 may be symbolic of something that I suspect - that the Last Hero died just like his 12 companions, and his resurrection to an undead life is the mistake the Children felt they made all those years ago.

Just two White Walkers/Others in the mummer's version of the prologue.The 13 appear in a scene with Craster's lad.

I've read another version of this from LML.The idea being that through being undead and resurrected like Coldhands the 13 are better able to deal with the Long Night conditions and defeat the Others/White Walkers.

Gives agency to the Ironborn's mantra does it not?

 

 

[JNR]

6 hours ago, Black Crow said:

The impaled dreamers are the failed candidates who came before Bran. the Prince who has been promised/awaited for so long. The dragons stirring may be Danaerys' ones.

I doubt there's any connection between Bran and the entity known as the PtwP, and I don't think the 3EC is concerned with candidates for the role.

Also, for the dragons to be Dany's, they would have to be in or connected to Asshai in some sense.  But GRRM seems doubtful the story is ever going to go to Asshai in the series, and it's so far away I doubt he has the narrative time to spend in remaining books.... should there be any of those.  So whatever connection there might be is a tenuous and distant one.

5 hours ago, SirArthur said:

was the a Game of Thrones prologue literal or symbolical ? Because if it was literal we have to assume the Other from the prologue and his 12 shadows are out there and taking part in the story

Given that the characters were all fully conscious, I think it's as literal as any other chapter.  

What distinguishes Bran's chapter was that it was a coma dream... and hence, a mishmash of literal and symbolic concepts like the dreams we have, in the real world, or other complex dreams in canon, such as Jaime's from the time he slept using the weirwood stump as a pillow.

[JNR]

40 minutes ago, LynnS said:

I wonder if the Watch knows about the Black Gate and how to open it after 200 years.

I think all knowledge of the Gate vanished from the Watch long, long before it was abandoned.  Thousands of years ago.

The premise that Gared knew of it has always seemed doubtful.  If anyone in the Watch knew it was there, steps would have been taken to seal or defend it against Mance... who conspicuously never used or even mentioned it when attacking the Wall.

As for the idea a direwolf moved from north of the Wall to south of the Wall, GRRM has explicitly told us that direwolves were hunted to extinction north of the Wall... 

Quote

Shaw: Is there any reason why you never hear of direwolves north of the Wall?

Martin: They're an extinct animal in that part.

...though some in Heresy have made a curious habit of believing the author of the series must be wrong, and they must be right.