Heresy 8

[Black Crow]

Welcome to version 8 of the Heresy thread, dedicated to discussing the massive contradictions in the historical timelines, exploring the true identity and nature of the Others and their possible relationship with the Starks as Kings of Winter and generally trying to figure out what’s really going on in a world turned much darker and less certain in ADwD.

The earlier versions of the thread are still out there but for anyone coming new to the heresies and wondering where notions like the White Walkers being rangers rather than an invading army intent on killing all living things and the Night’s King being one of the good guys comes from I suggest using the link below to Heresy 6 where we did a series of round-ups and also have the only collection of the text of all of Old Nan’s Tales - the true histories according to GRRM.

http://asoiaf.wester...61905-heresy-6/

You’ll also find that this is a friendly, text-rich thread, for as I observed in an earlier post in order to preach heresy you must know scripture, but while some serious discussion is encouraged, those of us grown old in heresy are always happy to answer questions from the curious coming new to a fascinating game.

[Xray the Enforcer]

bump

[Iceborn]

Wooooooooo 8! anyway my recent thought's on the night's watch, after a "Jon" read-through of aGoT I thought that the word's of the nights watch reference fire twice (the fire that burns against the cold, the light that brings the dawn) this has been said but bare with me, my theory is that the red religion and the NW developed together, or that the words from R'hllor where used, but I do not think the NW is a part of the red religion as they say I am the fire/light not praying for someone to help them, although we might be reading too much into this and GRRM is referencing the human fear of dark and love of heat/light/fire. Also they don't burn weirwoods.

[EDIT] what if the NW existed before the wall? as a group of first men before the pact who guarded against the children and wood dancers the words become clear, the children attacked then ran, probably at night, so watchmen with fire would be useful, so after the pact and the raising of the wall (this is tricky as we don't know when it was raised) they had no use so went north where all the mythical creatures and megafauna (direwolves mammoths) went. This would explain the fear/hate of the WW.

also could they have existed in velerya (sorry don't know how to spell it) before the doom, and had, for all the skyrim players, a blades-like history, ie they followed the others etc. killing them off.

[Black Crow]

They don't indeed, but as Mormont observes they've forgotten so much.

I want to have another look at the timelines sometime soon, but whether we're talking about a thousand years ago, a couple of thousand years ago or long long ago, things have moved on and so much has been lost or forgotten.

I think it would be fair to say that there was a big dust up between Ice and Fire culminating in the Night that Ended battle, which was won by the followers of Light and Fire. The current Red Lot are the fundamentalists who have either held true to the original tenets of their faith or rediscovered them. Those following the Seven have mellowed into a more comfortable religion although it'll be interesting to see what direction the High Sparrow's followers take. And then there's the Watch, remembering their prayers to R'hllor and a sense of their original purpose but not much else.

[Jojen]

I have a few more ideas about some of the things brought up late in the Heresy 7 thread. The first has to do with AA. The legend says that AA plunged his sword into NN's heart, thereby creating Lightbringer. My earlier thoughts about NN being a side of AA that had to be sacrificed notwithstanding, what if the heart that must be pierced is the burning heart of Red Rahloo?

Secondly, the beardless Starks are perhaps more direct descendants of the wood dancers, who, if they look anything like the Children we've met so far, wouldn't be particularly hairy.

And thirdly, on the subject of CH's clothing--perhaps the reason that its relatively intact is that, (1) until recently, he'd been preserved in ice much like the 79 Sentinels and was thawed out when the time came for him to go to work, or (2) he's a much more fashion-conscious wight than the rest, and he simply replaces his old clothing whenever it gets too tattered.

[Black Crow]

Its quite obviously the latter; when Sam first meets him he's described as bundled up in a motley mixture of black and grey.

[Eyron]

heh heh, CH is is more fashionable.... :D I agree, I would go so far as to call him vain!

I had a thought earlier, when reading the last posts in heresy 7 and now again from Jojens post. I think we may have touched upon this before but, Nissa Nissa's spirit went into lightbringer. That fit's well with the dragons being woken from stone, receiving a soul, a shadow coming to life again.

If lightbringer is a sword, the sword will recognize AAR since the sword IS Nissa Nissa. When the sword is in the right hands it will come alive again.

[Black Crow]

As threatened here is the first part of Professor Crow’s animadversions on the timelines and the nature of history.

We’ve had our doubts about some of the unlikely dates before, but I’d like to put them on a more solid foundation. This might sound odd when dealing with a fantasy but its quite clear that GRRM is not only familiar with historical events such as the Wars of the Roses, but also with the historical process itself. A good example of this surfaced in an SSM (don’t have the ref but it was discussed recently) where he said that he had deliberately created a mythology in order to give depth to his world. The examples cited being Bran the Builder and Lan the Clever and he told how he’d deliberately gone about attributing various structures to Bran and planting all sorts of stories about Lan, simply because that’s how these things work. Attaching Bran’s name to the building of Storm’s End might not therefore be true, or perhaps he built Storms End but not the Wall. Similarly we’re told the Giants helped build the Wall and here GRRM was almost certainly referencing the mythology that Stonehenge was built by Giants rather than offering it as a matter of historical record.

There is of course an old cliché that history is written by the winners and we’ll come back to that in a moment, but its also influenced by the point of view. On the previous Heresy thread UnCat offered a theory that the song about the last of the Giants referred not to men but to the Children and then decided that it was contradicted by references to the little men forging weapons of metal while the Children didn’t. In reality there’s no reason why the song couldn’t refer to both Children and Men because to a Giant both are little.

Looking at the dating we’re given we can cheerfully dismiss the notion that the Wall is 8,000 years old. In human historical terms this is quite unimaginable and on a par with GRRM’s admitted mistake in making the Wall 700 feet high – far too high (March 2012 SSM) In a way it doesn’t matter, because all we need to know is that it was a very long time ago.

Written history in Martin’s World came with the Andals and if history is to have any significance in events still to unfold I think its pretty inevitable that it will be something written down, somewhere. Its often argued that because Andal history is written down then allowing for bias it should be accurate as to timelines and everything else, but I take leave to doubt that very much. In our world histories have been written down for over 2,000 years but they are incomplete, fragmentary and above all uncoordinated. Its always worth remembering that in English Law the term “time immemorial” had a precise legal definition – of anything before 1189 (the accession of Richard 1) - since the earlier records were either non-existent, lost, incomplete or simply unreliable.

Its also worth bearing in mind here that this was the Kingdom of England. Scotland had its own history and timelines. From time to time the two inevitably intersected, usually in a battle, which helps to stitch things together, but as usual this gets more difficult and more complex further back in time as kingdoms become more fragmented and intersections are fewer. This is obviously the case in Westeros with the Seven Kingdoms, plus other bits each with its own history, all needing to be reconciled to make sense. There are obviously examples of precisely this in the books where POVs overlap and are not synchronised with others so that events in one book sometimes take place before events in the preceding one.

Its this sort of thing which makes the Maesters in the Citadel doubt stories and question timelines, because there is no universal and reliable history to be referred to, just a series of fragmentary documents and histories which obviously can’t easily be reconciled.

Now where, you might well ask, does this leave us both as readers and as heretics. I think that for all practical purposes we can forget about events before the coming of the Andals. Or rather we needn’t expect too much. We can safely go along with the broad outline that after waves of migration and conflict by the First Men a Pact was agreed with the Children. At some point there was a prolonged period of bad weather, perhaps lasting a generation; not of complete snow cover, but of short, wet summers with poor harvests and prolonged winters, leading to famine, pockets of starvation and no doubt war and banditry as people fought for what is actually available.

It may be significant that Old Nan refers to the Others/White Walkers appearing for the first time during this period of starvation. There is a certain assumption that they came from way up north intent on extermination, but they may simply have originally been marauding Wood Dancers wiping out small communities in order to plunder food – remember that the present lot have been collecting sheep and perhaps other foodstuffs from Craster’s place as well as his sons.

At some point too, the Wall was erected by great magic and the 100 kingdoms, weakened and ravaged by famine and war were swallowed up to become the seven that we know.

So far as this period is concerned we need to know who really built the Wall and why, and who the White Walkers really are. Answers to both are going to come from the Children, not from the Citadel and its unlikely that dates matter.

As to the Andal period and the dating of certain important events pertinent to the Watch and the Others, part 2 will follow sometime later today, but work alas intrudes...

[alienarea]

As threatened here is the first part of Professor Crow’s animadversions on the timelines and the nature of history.

We’ve had our doubts about some of the unlikely dates before, but I’d like to put them on a more solid foundation. This might sound odd when dealing with a fantasy but its quite clear that GRRM is not only familiar with historical events such as the Wars of the Roses, but also with the historical process itself. A good example of this surfaced in an SSM (don’t have the ref but it was discussed recently) where he said that he had deliberately created a mythology in order to give depth to his world. The examples cited being Bran the Builder and Lan the Clever and he told how he’d deliberately gone about attributing various structures to Bran and planting all sorts of stories about Lan, simply because that’s how these things work. Attaching Bran’s name to the building of Storm’s End might not therefore be true, or perhaps he built Storms End but not the Wall. Similarly we’re told the Giants helped build the Wall and here GRRM was almost certainly referencing the mythology that Stonehenge was built by Giants rather than offering it as a matter of historical record.

There is of course an old cliché that history is written by the winners and we’ll come back to that in a moment, but its also influenced by the point of view. On the previous Heresy thread UnCat offered a theory that the song about the last of the Giants referred not to men but to the Children and then decided that it was contradicted by references to the little men forging weapons of metal while the Children didn’t. In reality there’s no reason why the song couldn’t refer to both Children and Men because to a Giant both are little.

Looking at the dating we’re given we can cheerfully dismiss the notion that the Wall is 8,000 years old. In human historical terms this is quite unimaginable and on a par with GRRM’s admitted mistake in making the Wall 700 feet high – far too high (March 2012 SSM) In a way it doesn’t matter, because all we need to know is that it was a very long time ago.

Written history in Martin’s World came with the Andals and if history is to have any significance in events still to unfold I think its pretty inevitable that it will be something written down, somewhere. Its often argued that because Andal history is written down then allowing for bias it should be accurate as to timelines and everything else, but I take leave to doubt that very much. In our world histories have been written down for over 2,000 years but they are incomplete, fragmentary and above all uncoordinated. Its always worth remembering that in English Law the term “time immemorial” had a precise legal definition – of anything before 1189 (the accession of Richard 1) - since the earlier records were either non-existent, lost, incomplete or simply unreliable.

Its also worth bearing in mind here that this was the Kingdom of England. Scotland had its own history and timelines. From time to time the two inevitably intersected, usually in a battle, which helps to stitch things together, but as usual this gets more difficult and more complex further back in time as kingdoms become more fragmented and intersections are fewer. This is obviously the case in Westeros with the Seven Kingdoms, plus other bits each with its own history, all needing to be reconciled to make sense. There are obviously examples of precisely this in the books where POVs overlap and are not synchronised with others so that events in one book sometimes take place before events in the preceding one.

Its this sort of thing which makes the Maesters in the Citadel doubt stories and question timelines, because there is no universal and reliable history to be referred to, just a series of fragmentary documents and histories which obviously can’t easily be reconciled.

Now where, you might well ask, does this leave us both as readers and as heretics. I think that for all practical purposes we can forget about events before the coming of the Andals. Or rather we needn’t expect too much. We can safely go along with the broad outline that after waves of migration and conflict by the First Men a Pact was agreed with the Children. At some point there was a prolonged period of bad weather, perhaps lasting a generation; not of complete snow cover, but of short, wet summers with poor harvests and prolonged winters, leading to famine, pockets of starvation and no doubt war and banditry as people fought for what is actually available.

It may be significant that Old Nan refers to the Others/White Walkers appearing for the first time during this period of starvation. There is a certain assumption that they came from way up north intent on extermination, but they may simply have originally been marauding Wood Dancers wiping out small communities in order to plunder food – remember that the present lot have been collecting sheep and perhaps other foodstuffs from Craster’s place as well as his sons.

At some point too, the Wall was erected by great magic and the 100 kingdoms, weakened and ravaged by famine and war were swallowed up to become the seven that we know.

So far as this period is concerned we need to know who really built the Wall and why, and who the White Walkers really are. Answers to both are going to come from the Children, not from the Citadel and its unlikely that dates matter.

As to the Andal period and the dating of certain important events pertinent to the Watch and the Others, part 2 will follow sometime later today, but work alas intrudes...

I don't know if it applies in ASoIaF as well, but do we know if the First Men and CotF and Andals count years the same way?

For example, in real life there are theories that the extreme long lives recorded for biblical persons like Mose can be attributed to counting a full moon as a year.

I am wondering about this because society in Westeros seems to be stuck at the same technological level for an extremely long period. If we divide the 8000 years by moons that makes about 615. Which without further specification on the 8000 years (could be between 7800 and 8300 for example) we have more or less the exact number as there are listed Lord Commanders of the Night Watch.

That brings us back to earlier theories within Heresy that the original Lord Commanders served 1 year (and from there to Bran the Builder being the 13th Lord Commander and the Night King). The missing lord commanders in Sam's research on the two lists could simply be attributed to the time when the counting of years shifted from moons to years (winters?). Throwing in winters for years makes it additionally fuzzy with seasons out of synch.

[Uncat]

Oh dear god(s). A few days without a chance to read the thread and look what happened. I try to catch up and see if that larger post I have in mind still makes sence.

Right now I was just swinging in to ask a question without looking left an right. I just finished ASOS pt.1. There in the final two chapters we are told the story of queen Alysanne TWICE. Once in Brans POV and once in Jons. This might have been a storytelling gimmick to make the reader realize how near Jon and Bran were and to get this two parallel chapters in sync. But still: It really empasizes the story. In the same time the version from Jon gives us one important fact: The Queen wasn't just visiting. Politics have brought the king up there, and what looks like a big show of force, power and glory (I mean, SIX dragons, half the court? This is not just some travelig. This is big). Still: why tell it twice? Is this a hint on that story being really important? But why would it be? Or has this already been discussed in the older heresys before Heresy five?

[Uncat]

heh heh, CH is is more fashionable.... :D I agree, I would go so far as to call him vain!

I had a thought earlier, when reading the last posts in heresy 7 and now again from Jojens post. I think we may have touched upon this before but, Nissa Nissa's spirit went into lightbringer. That fit's well with the dragons being woken from stone, receiving a soul, a shadow coming to life again.

If lightbringer is a sword, the sword will recognize AAR since the sword IS Nissa Nissa. When the sword is in the right hands it will come alive again.

Only AAR might not be to happy with that happening. I'm still not too sure if NN was all that happy about the whole sacrifice thing ;)

[Lykos]

@Uncat

I exactly know how you feel. And I think, I should go over the first heresy threads again. I was looking at some other old threads yesterday, and that was very interesting.

In heresy 6 there was the Idea by Black Crow, that the Wall weakened the dragons due to cold. I speculated that this caused Alysanne to give the gift to the NW, because she experienced first hand how her mighty Silverwing was weakend.

But your find, and Black Crow´s idea of the NW as an instrument of the red lot has me thinking. The practise of the First Night was abolished on Alysanne´s behalf. Bran Vras speculates that the First Night is significant in keeping the "old ways", in his Mance Rayder thread.

[Uncat]

I don't know if it applies in ASoIaF as well, but do we know if the First Men and CotF and Andals count years the same way?

For example, in real life there are theories that the extreme long lives recorded for biblical persons like Mose can be attributed to counting a full moon as a year.

I am wondering about this because society in Westeros seems to be stuck at the same technological level for an extremely long period. If we divide the 8000 years by moons that makes about 615. Which without further specification on the 8000 years (could be between 7800 and 8300 for example) we have more or less the exact number as there are listed Lord Commanders of the Night Watch.

That brings us back to earlier theories within Heresy that the original Lord Commanders served 1 year (and from there to Bran the Builder being the 13th Lord Commander and the Night King). The missing lord commanders in Sam's research on the two lists could simply be attributed to the time when the counting of years shifted from moons to years (winters?). Throwing in winters for years makes it additionally fuzzy with seasons out of synch.

Yepp, newer thought of that. And yet it our real world it pulls the mystic Atlantis from the end of the last ice age to a much more realistic bronce age. The simple explanation the would be, that Plato (the author of the only account, that we have) has picked up the story in some temple in Aegypt. People there had very thorough timelines for over ten thousend years. Only, as it happens, Plato took a year for a year, never realising, that the year that the account in the temple reffered to was actually a month. A moon year. And such, until recently Atlantis was misplaced in time by nearly ten thoused years. Would be a thing, a man like GRRM would know of.

Edit: Typos

[Lykos]

@Uncat

That was my first idea, how the seasons could be about 10 years long, but the moonphases mentioned in Bran II in ADWD did disprove that, was I disapointed, then.

[Uncat]

Yepp, back when I read AGOT for the first time I had that notion, too. But GRRM very quickly made it abundandly clear, that the seasons really last years. So I burried it. But he might very well have used it, to mess with the time line in a way, that in the real world would have happened to.

[Elaena Targaryen]

I have read a lot of threads discussing how they mark time in ASOIF and concerning the seasons. I don't know which one would be the best to post a link but if you do a search you can find them; also none are very long so don't worry. :) Some of these posters have been debating this for a decade and with posters educated in such matters so it was interesting to read about.

The concensus seems to be that in ASOIF a year is the same as ours, or close enough that makes no matter. The maesters study all of these things and probably use the moon cycles to track a year. The ages of when girls flower is the same for us and ages of characters too really. It seems Martin is not concerned about how this all works with time, seasons, and planting but the maesters should be watching and advising on this. One thing too is the days are growing shorter (looked that up for you Lykos ;) ) But you will get better and more detailed info if you do a search.

One thing that I have not seen discussed in those threads is the idea that maybe they tracked time differently in the past, like the First Men before the Andals came and maybe even the wildings. This concept is interesting and could confuse things even more for us but in a fun way. :)

[Eyron]

It has been suggested before. The Children and subsequently the First Men may have had a different calendar, counting the years by long seasons, or as said above moon years. The Children may have had no reason to consider short years at all, they live long lives and the long seasons may be to them what the normal seasons are to humans.

The idea of a belief in cyclic history ties into that also, and the mooncult and the number 13, as Lummel has pointed out earlier. The number 13 is sacred to the moon cult, 13 moons instead of 12 months.

That idea connects all kinds of dots really.

[jon rr stark]

heh heh, CH is is more fashionable.... :D I agree, I would go so far as to call him vain!

I had a thought earlier, when reading the last posts in heresy 7 and now again from Jojens post. I think we may have touched upon this before but, Nissa Nissa's spirit went into lightbringer. That fit's well with the dragons being woken from stone, receiving a soul, a shadow coming to life again.

If lightbringer is a sword, the sword will recognize AAR since the sword IS Nissa Nissa. When the sword is in the right hands it will come alive again.

Since the topic of swords was mentioned, not sure if this is the place to put this. However what with lightbringer being the sword that saved the world so to speak, its not the sort of thing you would lose down the back of the sofa. You would have thought it would be kept somewhere safe. Now where do we know where there are lots of old swords still with their owner. Crypt in winterfell. Picture this, the tradition started with lightbringer and AA upon his death. Ahh ha I hear you say but AA was not a Stark or even a 1st man, he came from somewhere across the narrow sea. But St. Patrick wasn't Irish and look what happened there.

Linked with this is one of Jons recurring dreams where he is down in the winterfell crypts looking for something but always wakes up before he gets there. We know he is or maybe a possible candidate as AA reborn, He has the dream atop the wall with flaming sword fighting all comers.

If he is dead his spirit could goto the crypts possibly with the assistance of Bran or a certain ghost. Ghosts in winterfell, swords in winterfell, kings of winter facing the coming winter!!!

[Uncat]

So, sorry, Black Crow. Such a great post and people like me are bickering about dates, calenders and swords ;) Up to now I am complety on your page, bloodles checks blushing abount being mentioned (deserves another :)). Can't wait for the second part.

Edit

@Jon rr stark and all. Ups, this one could get a wrong ring to you. Did not mean in a bad way.

[Iceborn]

@Uncat

I exactly know how you feel. And I think, I should go over the first heresy threads again. I was looking at some other old threads yesterday, and that was very interesting.

In heresy 6 there was the Idea by Black Crow, that the Wall weakened the dragons due to cold. I speculated that this caused Alysanne to give the gift to the NW, because she experienced first hand how her mighty Silverwing was weakend.

But your find, and Black Crow´s idea of the NW as an instrument of the red lot has me thinking. The practise of the First Night was abolished on Alysanne´s behalf. Bran Vras speculates that the First Night is significant in keeping the "old ways", in his Mance Rayder thread.

can you explain "First Night" can't find it in my copy, but the kindle is only 90% software quality. Also the night's watch where formed by First Men not andels that points away from the red lot and towards the old gods, maester Aemon says: "They came from a hundred quarrelsome [first men] kingdoms"