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Why don’t Starks/Northern houses burn their dead?


Angel Eyes

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So white walkers raise the dead as wights. Wights can only be killed with fire, so wildlings and Night’s Watch burn their dead. And the North is the closest kingdom to the Lands of Always Winter. So why doesn’t the North burn their dead?

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2 minutes ago, Angel Eyes said:

so wildlings and Night’s Watch burn their dead

The Night's Watch only started burning their dead when their dead started coming back to life recently. Previous to that I imagine they would observe whatever ritual the dead brother would have done depending on his religion/family custom.

The simple answer is that everyone has forgotten about the Others and the Wights. It's been thousands of years since the Long Night. The North didn't remember.

Even the Nights Watch had come to believe that their sole purpose was to keep the Wildlings down. The only threat to the realm to come from the north for thousands of hears had been the occasional invasion by Wildlings. 

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1 minute ago, Shouldve Taken The Black said:

The Night's Watch only started burning their dead when their dead started coming back to life recently. Previous to that I imagine they would observe whatever ritual the dead brother would have done depending on his religion/family custom.

The simple answer is that everyone has forgotten about the Others and the Wights. It's been thousands of years since the Long Night. The North didn't remember.

Even the Nights Watch had come to believe that their sole purpose was to keep the Wildlings down. The only threat to the realm to come from the north for thousands of hears had been the occasional invasion by Wildlings. 

And there I was, thinking that The North Remembers. 

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4 minutes ago, Angel Eyes said:

And there I was, thinking that The North Remembers.

It clearly hasn't. Even Joer Mormont acknowledges that the Nights Watch has forgotten its real purpose.

It wouldn't be surprising if the Northern houses observed cremation as some kind of leftover from ancient times, perhaps not remembering exactly why, but they don't.

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It's been thousands of years since the Others and their Wights were last a threat to men. Things are forgotten, traditions are lost or altered, other cultures are met and their ideas take root. The idea of burning the dead has been lost or forgotten, just like the idea of arming the Black Brothers with Dragonglass has been forgotten. Jeor Mormont sums it up pretty well...

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"We never knew! But we must have known once. The Night's Watch has forgotten its true purpose, Tarly. You don't build a wall seven hundred feet high to keep savages in skins from stealing women. The Wall was made to guard the realms of men . . . and not against other men, which is all the wildlings are when you come right down to it. Too many years, Tarly, too many hundreds and thousands of years. We lost sight of the true enemy. And now he's here, but we don't know how to fight him."  ASoS Samwell II

 

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14 minutes ago, Kandrax said:

I think that only Tullys burn their dead.

And Targaryens.

It appears that the great houses all have their own special customs for their dead. We don't know what many of them do, but it wouldn't be surprising if other houses had some sort of cremation ritual as well. 

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Well, obviously so that all the dead Starks of Winterfell will be able to come riding forth, their skeletal forms mounted on that dragon that heats the underground springs beneath Winterfell. As skeletons, they don't weigh much so one dragon can easily carry an entire army of them.

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4 hours ago, Angel Eyes said:

So white walkers raise the dead as wights. Wights can only be killed with fire, so wildlings and Night’s Watch burn their dead. And the North is the closest kingdom to the Lands of Always Winter. So why doesn’t the North burn their dead?

Good thing they put the ashes in urns though, otherwise no one could've dug out the Horn of Winter from crypts.

3 hours ago, Shouldve Taken The Black said:

And Targaryens.

It appears that the great houses all have their own special customs for their dead. We don't know what many of them do, but it wouldn't be surprising if other houses had some sort of cremation ritual as well. 

I wonder what Arryns do.

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6 minutes ago, Corvo the Crow said:

Good thing they put the ashes in urns though, otherwise no one could've dug out the Horn of Winter from crypts.

I wonder what Arryns do.

Wrap in canvas and ejected via the moon door?

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23 hours ago, zandru said:

Well, obviously so that all the dead Starks of Winterfell will be able to come riding forth

Sounds like you said that in jest, but I think storing their dead in sealed stone crypts was part of Bran's master plan to keep the Kings of Winter out of the weirwood net and ready for Bran to raise them from their tombs.  We have gotten plenty of foreshadowing that they will rise.

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Last night he had dreamt the Winterfell dream again. He was wandering the empty castle, searching for his father, descending into the crypts. Only this time the dream had gone further than before. In the dark he'd heard the scrape of stone on stone. When he turned he saw that the vaults were opening, one after the other. As the dead kings came stumbling from their cold black graves,

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When the spirit stepped out of the open tomb, pale white and moaning for blood, Sansa ran shrieking for the stairs, and Bran wrapped himself around Robb's leg, sobbing. Arya stood her ground and gave the spirit a punch. It was only Jon, covered with flour. "You stupid," she told him, "you scared the baby,"

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By ancient custom an iron longsword had been laid across the lap of each who had been Lord of Winterfell, to keep the vengeful spirits in their crypts. The oldest had long ago rusted away to nothing, leaving only a few red stains where the metal had rested on stone. Ned wondered if that meant those ghosts were free to roam the castle now.

 

Then there is other foreshadowing from other underground locations about the lower you go the creepier and more sinister it gets

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Gooseprickles rose along her arms. The sanctum. They were going lower still, down to the third level, to the secret chambers where only the priests were permitted.

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"The steps go farther down," observed Lady Dustin.
"There are lower levels. Older. The lowest level is partly collapsed, I hear. I have never been down there."
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"Maegor the Cruel decreed four levels of dungeons for his castle," Varys replied. "On the upper level, there are large cells where common criminals may be confined together. They have narrow windows set high in the walls. The second level has the smaller cells where highborn captives are held. They have no windows, but torches in the halls cast light through the bars. On the third level the cells are smaller and the doors are wood. The black cells, men call them. That was where you were kept, and Eddard Stark before you. But there is a level lower still. Once a man is taken down to the fourth level, he never sees the sun again, nor hears a human voice, nor breathes a breath free of agonizing pain. Maegor had the cells on the fourth level built for torment." They had reached the bottom of the steps. An unlighted door opened before them. "This is the fourth level. Give me your hand, my lord. It is safer to walk in darkness here. There are things you would not wish to see."

Something terrible is imprisoned under Winterfell.

 

And the time Hodor wouldn't go into the crypts because something was down there. ""Hodor won't go down into the crypts."

George says about that "Hodor was only afraid of the crypts =at that specific time.= Not before and not after."

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1 hour ago, By Odin's Beard said:

Sounds like you said that in jest, but I think storing their dead in sealed stone crypts was part of Bran's master plan to keep the Kings of Winter out of the weirwood net and ready for Bran to raise them from their tombs.  We have gotten plenty of foreshadowing that they will rise.

Indeed, although there seem to be plenty who swear by it.

Your "foreshadowing" quotes don't convince me. The first is a possibility; the second just describes a childish prank (and not an uncommon one, either), the third isn't talking about physical resurrection (bones? That's all there is in the tombs), the next quote is I think from Braavos and irrelevant, Lady Dustin's quote refers to "collapsed" levels - hard to see how any physical being could march forth out of that, and the final quote refers to dungeons in Maegor's Holdfast, far away in King's landing and is thus also irrelevant. Also, everybody in the North was "in the weir cloud" in life, so boxing their bones is too little, too late.

So I don't see "plenty of foreshadowing." At best, it may be a metaphorical indication of "the North will rise again", not metaphysical. Kind of like the sea coming to Winterfell.

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2 hours ago, ChuckPunch said:

They got gentrified by the Andals, like the Dornish and Reachmen before them. 

Bingo 

2 hours ago, Shouldve Taken The Black said:

The North was never conquered by the Andals. 

He didn't say conquered. Gentrified, Andals moving north and bringing their culture and traditions with them, like the Manderlys, or bringing it with them via marriage, like the Tullys or the Royces 

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10 minutes ago, zandru said:

Indeed, although there seem to be plenty who swear by it.

Your "foreshadowing" quotes don't convince me. The first is a possibility; the second just describes a childish prank (and not an uncommon one, either), the third isn't talking about physical resurrection (bones? That's all there is in the tombs), the next quote is I think from Braavos and irrelevant, Lady Dustin's quote refers to "collapsed" levels - hard to see how any physical being could march forth out of that, and the final quote refers to dungeons in Maegor's Holdfast, far away in King's landing and is thus also irrelevant. Also, everybody in the North was "in the weir cloud" in life, so boxing their bones is too little, too late.

So I don't see "plenty of foreshadowing." At best, it may be a metaphorical indication of "the North will rise again", not metaphysical. Kind of like the sea coming to Winterfell.

 

That is a pretty rigid and overly-literal way of thinking.  Yes, there is a chance this is all a huge red-herring, but it is practically spelled out for you that the Kings of Winter are in some sense still alive, and angry, and vengeful.

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"The Kings of Winter watched him pass with eyes of ice"

"He could feel the eyes of the dead. They were all listening, he knew"

"to keep the vengeful spirits in their crypts."

"And when night falls, there are said to be ghosts, cold vengeful spirits of the north who hunger for southron blood."

Especially in the context of a story where we know the dead have already risen.

 

How or why are the swords keeping the vengeful spirits at bay?  And why is the mentioning that some swords are missing a recurring theme?
 

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They had three tomb swords taken from the crypts of Winterfell where Bran and his brother Rickon had hidden from Theon Greyjoy's ironmen. Bran claimed his uncle Brandon's sword, Meera the one she found upon the knees of his grandfather Lord Rickard. Hodor's blade was much older, a huge heavy piece of iron, dull from centuries of neglect and well spotted with rust.

"The old ghosts from the crypts and the younger ones that he had made himself, Mikken and Farlen, Gynir Rednose, Aggar, Gelmarr the Grim, the miller's wife from Acorn Water and her two young sons, and all the rest. My work. My ghosts. They are all here, and they are angry. He thought of the crypts and those missing swords."

He wondered if Lady Dustin had told them about the crypts, the missing swords.

One gloved hand still clutched the rusty iron longsword he had taken from the crypts below Winterfell

at last they'd found him down in the crypts, Rickon had slashed at them with a rusted iron sword he'd snatched from a dead king's hand, and Shaggydog had come slavering out of the darkness like a green-eyed demon.

 

And by the rules of corpse reanimation, as long as the bones are intact it can still rise.

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Summer dug up a severed arm, black and covered with hoarfrost, its fingers opening and closing as it pulled itself across the frozen snow. There was still enough meat on it to fill his empty belly, and after that was done he cracked the arm bones for the marrow. Only then did the arm remember it was dead.

 

With regards to the other underground locations and dungeons, I clearly stated they were not Winterfell, then you pointed out they were not Winterfell as if you thought you had a "gotcha!"  If an author wants to give you a hint about topic A (crypts), he can describe topic B (dungeons) in very similar and more detailed wording.  It is called metaphor.

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A metaphor refers to a meaning or identity ascribed to one subject by way of another. In a metaphor, one subject is implied to be another so as to draw a comparison between their similarities and shared traits. The first subject, which is the focus of the sentences is usually compared to the second subject, which is used to convey a degree of meaning that is used to characterize the first. The purpose of using a metaphor is to take an identity or concept that we understand clearly (second subject) and use it to better understand the lesser known element (the first subject).

 

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