Heresy 76

[Black Crow]

Welcome to Heresy’s Spirit of 76, this week’s edition of the long-running thread which takes an unorthodox look at the Song of Ice and Fire, the secret conflict underlying the Game of Thrones.

We call it Heresy because we began back in November 2011 by challenging the orthodoxies that the Song of Ice and Fire is simply about Jon Snow turning out to be Azor Ahai and defeating the Others, and that the children of the forest are the good guys. Instead as the story has progressed we have come to see a much darker world and that the Starks’ place in it may not be as straightforward as once it seemed. Instead we try to look below the surface at a second, far more complex conflict which may have little or nothing to do with the struggle for the Iron Throne.

Some of us suspect that the children are not the cuddly tree-huggers they pretend to be, for the Pact agreed long ago on the Isle of Faces was a singularly one-sided one which saw the children surrender their lands and yet in the end Men still broke the Pact; by cutting down the weirwoods, slaughtering the children and driving the survivors beyond the Wall to face extinction.

There the weirwood faces of the white walkers in the HBO show may point to a connection with the children already admitted but not yet explained by GRRM, and now as Qhorin Halfhand warned, the Old Powers are awakening, the trees have eyes again - and Gendel’s children are always hungry.

The role of the Starks is therefore equally ambiguous. They were once kings not of the North but of Winter, and may be again in the person of Jon Snow.

This is the Song of Ice and Fire; and the Others and the rest of the Old Powers together represent only one side of a conflict that has been waged since time began.

All of these theories are just that and matters of controversy rather tenets of faith. We think we’re reaching a better understanding of what’s really going on, but as heretics we neither promote nor defend a particular viewpoint, in fact we argue quite a lot which is what makes this thread cycle so much fun.

If you’re already actively involved in the Heresy business it needs no further introduction, but if you’re new to the game please don’t be intimidated by the fact there are 75 earlier threads. We’re very good at talking in circles. We’re also friendly and we don’t mind going over old ground again, especially with a fresh pair of eyes, so just ask.

It is a very fast moving thread however and lately we’ve been running through 400 posts in rather less than a week. Heresy 75 lasted just over three full days. This makes it difficult even for the old hands to keep up, let alone visitors, so I would gently request so far as possible restricting discussion to matters heretical, rather than introducing comment on more general topics. Doing that should go a little way to helping people keep up.

Otherwise, all that we do ask of you as ever is that the debate be conducted by reference to the text, with respect for the ideas of others, and above all great good humour.

[wolfmaid7]

:commie: :commie: :commie: :commie: :commie:

Good Job guys and lets keep the good times rolling.

[Capon Breath]

From 75....

It's wrong to criticise R+L =J fanboys. They took something in the text (Jon is Neds bastard with Wylla) and challenged it through interpreting the clues in the text. This makes them the original Heretics.

[Black Crow]

From 75....

It's wrong to criticise R+L =J fanboys. They took something in the text (Jon is Neds bastard with Wylla) and challenged it through interpreting the clues in the text. This makes them the original Heretics.

Perfectly true, as I said earlier, its a perfectly viable theory; but where I take leave to differ from most proponents of it is interpreting the significance, and suggesting that ultimately Jon's connection to the wolves will be more important than the supposed connection to the dragons. As Maester Aemon declared; he is a son of Winterfell.

[The Dragon has three heads]

I got deep in 75 about the glaring difference in the timelines between the building of the wall, the night fort and then the rest of the castles.

Surely this second phase of the NW also pretty much validates the idea that the oath has been changed for Andal benfit?

Also if the children were in league with the watch early on, surely bran is the only vehicle for the true history of westeros making any splash in the main text?

And therefor doesn't that also conclude he must be the PTWP and if so what about him specifically and or the timing of his birth or near death was the catalyst for the current events?

[Black Crow]

Interesting thought about Bran's birth being a catalyst. Bloodraven does after all say that he had been watching his father and then Bran since he was born and now here he is in the cave "at last". I've tended to look a little sideways at that particular speech as perhaps suggesting that Bran's fall was in some way engineered, but I think you're right in the emphasis on Bran fulfilling his destiny by coming north.

As to the Watch, I still think that the evidence, taking into account the two "phases" of the Watch and the Nights King story, clearly points to a change with the coming of the Andals, ie; that during the age of heroes the Watch was much smaller and acted as gatekeepers at the Nightfort, and perhaps in that case the 100 dragonglass daggers was not necessarily one for each kingdom but one for each man of the watch - or even that it was both and that each kingdom provided a man for the watch.

Then, with the coming of the Andals, the Nights King was overthrown, the connection with the children was broken, the Black Gate was "locked" and a much larger Watch, the Watch that we know, started building the castles.

[Harlan]

1. I got deep in 75 about the glaring difference in the timelines between the building of the wall, the night fort and then the rest of the castles.

2. Surely this second phase of the NW also pretty much validates the idea that the oath has been changed for Andal benfit?

3. Also if the children were in league with the watch early on, surely bran is the only vehicle for the true history of westeros making any splash in the main text?

4. And therefor doesn't that also conclude he must be the PTWP and if so what about him specifically and or the timing of his birth or near death was the catalyst for the current events?

above post edited to add line numbers

2. Do we have any evidence of significant change in the night's watch oath? The only thing I think we've seen which may remember the original oath is the nightfort's hidden gate. That gate responded to an identical, albiet truncated, oath to what Sam swore in front of the heart tree when he took his oath. This seems to indicate that the oath hasn't changed (or at least that the original oath is present in its full form within the modern oath)

I do agree with the generall point being made by your post though that there was a likely a shift in the goals of the night's watch which appears to corrospond with the introduction of andals to westoros. I simply don't see any evidence that the oath has changed

3. The thenns may know more than we give them credit for as well. The first men had writing (glyphs or runes or somthing I can't remember exactly)

4. I don't see how this statement can be supported at all. I've compiled every mention of the prince that was promised and none of the information in the following quotes seems to hint at bran. Bran wasn't born amidst salt and smoke. The stars didn't bleed for him. nothing points to Bran being the PtwP.

“He has a song,” the man replied. “He is the prince that was promised, and his is the song of ice and fire.” He looked up when he said it and his eyes met Dany’s, and it seemed as if he saw her standing there beyond the door. “There must be one more,” he said, though whether he was speaking to her or the woman in the bed she could not say. “The dragon has three heads.”

“It means that the battle is begun,” said Melisandre. “The sand is running through the glass more quickly now, and man’s hour on earth is almost done. We must act boldly, or all hope is lost. Westeros must unite beneath her one true king, the prince that was promised, Lord of Dragonstone and chosen of R’hllor.”

She nodded . “There was a woman in a bed with a babe at her breast. My brother said the babe was the prince that was promised and told her to name him Aegon.”

“Prince Aegon was Rhaegar’s heir by Elia of Dorne,” Ser Jorah said. “But if he was this prince that was promised, the promise was broken along with his skull when the Lannisters dashed his head against a wall.”

“You are he who must stand against the Other. The one whose coming was prophesied five thousand years ago. The red comet was your herald. You are the prince that was promised, and if you fail the world fails with you.” Melisandre went to him, her red lips parted, her ruby throbbing. “Give me this boy,” she whispered, “and I will give you your kingdom.”

But all of them seemed surprised to hear Maester Aemon murmur , “It is the war for the dawn you speak of, my lady. But where is the prince that was promised?”

“He stands before you ,” Melisandre declared, “though you do not have the eyes to see. Stannis Baratheon is Azor Ahai come again, the warrior of fire. In him the prophecies are fulfilled. The red comet blazed across the sky to herald his coming, and he bears Lightbringer, the red sword of heroes.”

On Braavos, it had seemed possible that Aemon might recover. Xhondo’s talk of dragons had almost seemed to restore the old man to himself. That night he ate every bite Sam put before him. “No one ever looked for a girl,” he said. “It was a prince that was promised, not a princess. Rhaegar, I thought … the smoke was from the fire that devoured Summerhall on the day of his birth, the salt from the tears shed for those who died. He shared my belief when he was young, but later he became persuaded that it was his own son who fulfilled the prophecy, for a comet had been seen above King’s Landing on the night Aegon was conceived, and Rhaegar was certain the bleeding star had to be a comet. What fools we were, who thought ourselves so wise! The error crept in from the translation. Dragons are neither male nor female, Barth saw the truth of that, but now one and now the other, as changeable as flame. The language misled us all for a thousand years. Daenerys is the one, born amidst salt and smoke. The dragons prove it.” Just talking of her seemed to make him stronger. “I must go to her. I must. Would that I was even ten years younger.”

[scottymoze]

What if this is part of the ending...Jamie face to face with Bran, apologizing. That could be bone chilling, especially Bran's reaction. I know Danerys, Jon and many others need a role in the ending too (Davos!) but, that would be insane no? Sorry off topic just throwing it out there, love you guys love this thread! Peace all!

[The Dragon has three heads]

2-I think simply that the oath sam swore exists within the modern oath in is itself evidence that it's changed.

Obviously only so much of the oath was needed to open the gate. So why the rest about holding no lands and having no children?

Is the wall and the oath more important than Jon's destiny? And if Jon is ment to do more with the realm as a writer surely GRRM would give himself an out? Which is totally meta but it's logical.

3-thenns are first men but so are all wildings in my opinion, no writing but had runes.

it's a matter of who can read first men runes and I think we're yet to come across a reader of them? Speakers yes, but no one reading them to my knowledge.

4-Yes but we know nothing about brans birth, any birth could have smoke and salt, tears, incense, bleeding star could be anything-literally.

those prophecies should be taken with a grain of well, smoke and salt, as I believe if GRRM wants them to come true, they will.

He always makes refernce to the Yorkist who stayed away from a certain castle but died at an in with the that castles likeness above its door.

Anyway I digress, I'm more pointing out bran is a prince and leaf and BR seem to have been waiting for him, meaning in a round about way they have a belief he would come-or were promised he would-which fulfills the prophecy simply through being a fact.

[Capon Breath]

Perfectly true, as I said earlier, its a perfectly viable theory; but where I take leave to differ from most proponents of it is interpreting the significance, and suggesting that ultimately Jon's connection to the wolves will be more important than the supposed connection to the dragons. As Maester Aemon declared; he is a son of Winterfell.

Thanks BC. Would be interested in yours (on anyone elses) conclusions on where this takes the Story.

The Series is called A Song of Ice & Fire. To me that has always intimated a conflict between the 2 with probably a balance as the outcome. In my simplistic view of the world this leads to one of 3 scenarios

1 - Ice & Fire are in 1 person. Only possible candidate being Jon & the "conflict" will be the opportunities created by his heritage - King of Winter Vs Sit the iron throne. Its essentially Jons Story "His is the Song of Ice & Fire"

2 - Ice on 1 side - respresented by the WW & probably the North / Starks and Fire on the other side respresented by the Red lot with probably Dany & The Dragons. Balance is acheived through the conflict rather than the actions of 1 individual.

3 - As 2 above but with Jon an integral part of the outcome due to his embodiment as both.

I guess i'm a traditionalist so probably in the camp of the 3rd option.

It feels like it would be a wasted mechaic for GRRM to have created a Stark / Targ hybrid and have a large amount of focus on him in the books for it to then only be important that he is a Stark. There are 5 other Stark kids who can fulfill the role of a Stark...?

[Black Crow]

I think that its worth summarizing the evidence concerning the early history of the Watch because while some of the conclusions might be considered heretical the evidence on which they are based seems in retrospect to be very clear.

As I said in an earlier post, while the dating might be suspect, I don’t see that there’s a problem with the timelines insofar as they relate to the historical framework, so for the sake of convenience will stick to the traditional ones starting off with the Wall being built by parties unknown 8,000 years ago.

Given that the conversation over Sam’s findings in the Castle Black archives is told twice and from two different POVs it’s reasonable to conclude that its significant. Yet at first sight it appears not to be. Sam confesses he has found very little about the Others and in effect all that he does find is confirmation of what was already known about their appearing at night or in falling snow, and the cold. They are vulnerable to dragonglass, fire daunts them, and there’s a story about how the Last Hero got stuck in with a sword of dragonsteel. He complains of course that given more time he might well find more, but I reckon that the quality of his evidence suggests otherwise. Its significant that what he finds is no more than what we already know about the half-seen white shadows in the woods and that there is nothing of a Battle for the Dawn and their defeat. Mormont died complaining that the Watch had forgotten too much. I’d suggest that the significance of this twice presented conversation is that the Watch has not forgotten – it never knew in the first place.

This might sound heretical, but consider the evidence that we do have.

We’re told that the Black Gate is as old as the Wall itself, so we can reasonably conclude that the Nightfort has also existed in one form or another as long as the Wall and in association with the gate.

We’re also told that the Night Fort is twice as old as the other castles, from which we can safely conclude first that for 4,000 years it was the only castle on the Wall, and secondly; that the castle-building is contemporary with the Andal period.

This brings us back to one of the few things that Sam did find; the annual gift by the children of 100 dragonglass daggers to the Watch during the Age of Heroes. As that age of Heroes ended with the coming of the Andals its therefore possible to see a double connection, ie; the giving of the dragonglass ended ,and the building of the castles began with the coming of the Andals.

As I suggested in my earlier post this also makes sense of the gift. I and others have argued in the past that the 100 daggers correspond to the hundred kingdoms. They may not insofar as 100 daggers might simply have been sufficient for the much smaller Watch guarding the Night Fort in those days, but I would argue that it is in fact both; that the Watch was originally comprised of one man drawn from each kingdom.

It may also be germane to note that so far as we can tell all or most of the stories of the Night Fort belong in the Age of Heroes; Symeon Star Eyes, the hell-hounds fighting and King Sherrit calling down his curse, and that by and large it all got a bit mundane after the Nights King was overthrown.

And that’s where we get to a heretical explanation of it all: that during the Age of Heroes the Nightfort was the only castle on the Wall and the Watch a small organization keeping the Black Gate.

The Nights King was the last commander during the Age of Heroes and after his downfall his name was wiped from the records and a new, larger Watch took over. A larger Watch which sealed the Black Gate with its own password and built the castles along its length, and that the enemy they defeated was not the white walkers but the others; the old races including the Children, who had been driven beyond the Wall by the coming of the Andals.

There are a couple of other heretical thoughts arising from this. If the original Watch was not an army guarding the Wall but a much smaller band keeping the gate at the Nightfort during the Age of Heroes, might there be some connection with the Green Men? And secondly, if it was just a small band, is there a connection with the 79 sentinels?

[King Tyrion VIII]

Maybe the 79 were the original Watch. Killed to cover up the NK business.

[red roggo]

The rat king story has the rat king serving an Andel king his son so there is at least that one tale w/ the watch and the andels.

Could it be that until that time only first men garrisoned the wall, then after that andels joined the watch to keep an eye on things up there?

[The Snowfyre Chorus]

I like the notion of a there being a connection between the Night's Watch and the Green Men. Perhaps we'll find a Green Gate on the Isle of Faces? Could Howland Reed have "taken the green" following his pilgrimage there during the year of the false spring?

[Urrax]

... A larger Watch which sealed the Black Gate with its own password and built the castles along its length, and that the enemy they defeated was not the white walkers but the others; the old races including the Children, who had been driven beyond the Wall by the coming of the Andals....

If the Children were now their enemy, where did they get the magic with which to seal the Black Gate with its own password?

[The Snowfyre Chorus]

If the Children were now their enemy, where did they get the magic with which to seal the Black Gate with its own password?

Yeah, I'd guess that if the Gate is the same Gate, then the password is the same password. More likely, the new Watch buried the old Gate (by building above and around it), and opened up new passages through the Wall for transit. This would have contributed to the transition in popular thinking - from considering the Wall a supernatural boundary guarding against a supernatural foe, to seeing it as merely a physical boundary protecting from natural threats.

(Edited for grammar)

[King of Winters]

My Geography teacher said something about the "Gaia Theory" a couple of days ago and said it was that the Earth was one big organism and that it creates natural disasters in order to control population. So I looked I up and here's the over view:

The Gaia Theory posits that the organic and inorganic components of Planet Earth have evolved together as a single living, self-regulating system. It suggests that this living system has automatically controlled global temperature, atmospheric content, ocean salinity, and other factors, that maintains its own habitability. In a phrase, life maintains conditions suitable for its own survival. In this respect, the living system of Earth can be thought of analogous to the workings of any individual organism that regulates body temperature, blood salinity, etc. So, for instance, even though the luminosity of the sun the Earths heat source has increased by about 30 percent since life began almost four billion years ago, the living system has reacted as a whole to maintain temperatures at levels suitable for life.

Could this be similar to ASOIAF with the magic (maybe the heart of winter) or not?

[Black Crow]

Maybe the 79 were the original Watch. Killed to cover up the NK business.

Something like that was at the back of my mind. After all the survivors were hardly going to be offered tea, sympathy and counselling.

[JonNonRegis]

My Geography teacher said something about the "Gaia Theory" a couple of days ago and said it was that the Earth was one big organism and that it creates natural disasters in order to control population. So I looked I up and here's the over view:

Could this be similar to ASOIAF with the magic (maybe the heart of winter) or not?

This is pretty similar to wolfmaid's theory of periodic cold as an inherent element of Westeros, no?

[JonNonRegis]

From 75....

It's wrong to criticise R+L =J fanboys. They took something in the text (Jon is Neds bastard with Wylla) and challenged it through interpreting the clues in the text. This makes them the original Heretics.

Sure. Questioning assumptions is wise.

They should stick to that wisdom, instead of pouring concrete over assumptions and then building new assumptions on top of the old.