Heresy 37

[Black Crow]

Welcome to Heresy 37, this weeks edition of the thread that offers an alternative view of the Song of Ice and Fire. People seemed to like the intro to Heresy 36 as a broad summing up of where we’re at, so I’ve re-used most of it this time around.

GRRM himself recently said …it was always my intention: to play with the reader’s expectations. Before I was a writer I was a voracious reader and I am still, and I have read many, many books with very predictable plots. As a reader, what I seek is a book that delights and surprises me. I want to not know what is gonna happen. For me, that’s the essence of storytelling and for this reason I want my readers to turn the pages with increasing fever: to know what happens next. There are a lot of expectations, mainly in the fantasy genre, which you have the hero and he is the chosen one, and he is always protected by his destiny. I didn’t want it for my books.

Heresy therefore is an eclectic thread which is all about challenging orthodoxy, as we try to figure out what’s really going on not in the Game of Thrones but the over-arching Game of Ice and Fire. We primarily challenge the easy orthodoxy that the Others are evil incarnate; that the Children of the Forest give Bran the knowledge how to defeat the Others and that he will pass this knowledge on to Jon, who is of course Azor Ahai, and will save Westeros astride one of Dany’s amazing dragons before taking his rightful place alongside her on the Iron Throne as Jon Targaryen first of his name.

Instead we look at who or what the Others really are and why some of them at least are Craster’s sons, noting both GRRM’s reference to them being like the Sidhe made of ice and to the way they behave not as an invading army but like the Wild Hunt of legend.

Conversely its hard to avoid the fact that the Children (who so far have conspicuously said nothing to Bran about the Others, far less hinted how they can be defeated) are not just of the Forest, but of the Darkness as well, that darkness feared and hated by Melisandre and the followers of the Lord of Light. Certainly whatever the real motives of the Children, it can cheerfully be assumed that they are no friends of the Red pyromaniacs.

As for Jon, we have this passage, where he’s reunited with Ghost, just outside the Wall:

Red eyes, Jon realized, but not like Melisandre’s. He had a weirwood’s eyes. Red eyes, red mouth, white fur. Blood and bone, like a heart tree. He belongs to the old gods, this one. And he alone of all the direwolves was white. Six pups they’d found in the late summer snows, him and Robb; five that were grey, and black and brown, for the five Starks, and one white, as white as snow.

Jon isn’t Azor Ahai. “He belongs to the old gods, this one.” He’s on the other side.

We also look at the Wall itself and of late have come to a certain consensus that it is not a defensive structure at all but marks the magical boundary between the realms of Ice (or Faerie), and Men and given the curious silence in the histories as to when and how it was built, some of us have come to think that it was not built after the Long Night to prevent the return of the Others but is much, much older. We are also agreed that it is the Wall itself which is at the heart of what’s wrong with Martin’s World and that it must come down.

Inevitably then this means drawing not just on the books themselves but on the real world mythologies, chiefly Celtic but Norse as well, which firmly underpin Martin’s version of the Faerie realms, leading us through the Mabinogion, the Tain bo Culaidh and the Norse Eddas amongst others to discover Bran the Blessed, Tam Lin, Cu Chulainn and above all the Morrigan.

As heretics we neither promote nor defend a particular viewpoint, in fact we argue quite a lot, but we do reckon that the Starks’ role in all of this is a lot darker and more ambiguous than once it seemed. They are after all the Kings of Winter.

Of late we’ve also been looking very closely at the nature of magic and the balance that’s been upset, and we also (well Tyryan actually) reckon we’ve cracked the Reeds’ oath and how it relates to what’s happening.

If you’re already actively involved in the Heresy business it needs no further introduction. If you’re new, or simply intimidated by the sheer scale of it all, not to mention the astonishing speed with which it moves, and wonder what we’re talking about and why we’ve come to these peculiar ideas, just ask. We’re friendly and we don’t mind going over old ground again, especially with a fresh pair of eyes.

[Gar Weg Wun Sygerrik]

20 pages.

[Little Wing]

Welcome to Heresy 37, this weeks edition of the thread that offers an alternative view of the Song of Ice and Fire.

Are we the fastest moving thread, or what? :commie:

:cheers:

[Tyryan Lannister]

woohoo Intro Name Drop :pimp:

[Black Crow]

Well it slowed down a bit over Christmas, but thanks to today's sprint Heresy 36 came in at exacly a week. Might slow down a little bit tomorrow because I'm finally back at work, but generally speaking a lot of the speed depends on whether we pick up something we can run with, like Wolfmaid's observations on magic which I really ought to have dropped in the intro as well as Tyryan's home run.

ETA: speaking of which, given the speed this thread moves and the way heresy 36 will sink like a stone now its been locked, can we have a summary please for this one on exactly where we are with the relationship of magic to the Reeds' oath.

[Tyryan Lannister]

Well it slowed down a bit over Christmas, but thanks to today's sprint Heresy 36 came in at exacly a week. Might slow down a little bit tomorrow because I'm finally back at work, but generally speaking a lot of the speed depends on whether we pick up something we can run with, like Wolfmaid's observations on magic which I really ought to have dropped in the intro as well as Tyryan's home run.

Yeah Wolfmaid's observations have really helped open up new doors and brought some great fresh insight... so for all you lurkers out there, don't be afraid to join the circus!

[Little Wing]

Black Crow:

This is the Song of Ice and Fire, and Ice and Fire are explicitly linked at the end of the oath. Although we don't know which is which, one of the Reeds swears by earth and water, and one by bronze and iron, before both swear by Ice and Fire in chorus which would suggest a certain primacy. Is it therefore Ice and Fire who are out of balance as we've assumed all along, or is it Ice and Fire who together will bring the other elements into balance.

Any suggestions?

Wolfmaid:

I think your latter point is spot on,Fire and Ice are bugging big time; the problem seems to centered around them. However,at the heart of this imbalance at lease from where i sit seems to be (spirit center) be it the wall or Man himself. This goes back to our earlier assertion that the wall must come down it is definitely a hindrance, but i see it as a lesser hindrance to man.The perfect union would be man in unison with the gods. Is there any proof to show that a pact between fire and ice was forged and or broken? If so this pact happen in the presence of weirwoods as witnesses?

Tyryan:

Earth and Water = Nature

Bronze and Iron = Man

Ice and Fire = Magic

In a nut shell...

[nanother]

Perhaps it's a good time to mention that the idea of a heretic re-read came up in the last thread. We agreed to keep it fairly relaxed, but I'm guessing it'd be a good idea to agree which chapters to cover and what to watch out for...

Seeing that the main focus of the Heresy threads is the nature of the Ice/Fire conflict, and the Others in particular, and how these are related to the Old Gods and Starks, I guess Jon, Bran and Sam's chapters should be definitely in, oh and Melisandre. And at least the three prologues taking place beyond the Wall. But the first few Tyrion chapters and Theon's Winterfell chapters should also be interesting to include. Those should cover much of the stuff about the Others, wights, the Wall, CotF, wargs etc.

But then some Ned, Arya, Dany, Davos (and other POV) chapters also are likely to be relevant, not sure how to handle that...never done anything like this...

[Black Crow]

@little Wing

Thanks, I think that'll do nicely for now and at the very least give us something to move on with.

[Little Wing]

nanother - if we were to do a re-read, it would take place on the Re-read Project sub forum, so if you want, you can start... for now it's you, feather and me :)

[nanother]

OK, I probably won't get started before Thursday though - I'm flying to London and have a rehearsal tomorrow, so should be packing right now. I wish I had a direwolf to help...

[Little Wing]

OK, I probably won't get started before Thursday though - I'm flying to London and have a rehearsal tomorrow, so should be packing right now. I wish I had a direwolf to help...

Keep calm and throw things in the suitcase like Arya ^_^ If you're busy, we'll work something out, no worries...

Now, about magic - what does everyone here think - will magic die out in the end? Will religion take it's place in the trio Tyryan suggested? Like it did in our world... at least according to the Golden Bow :read:

[Tyryan Lannister]

OK, I probably won't get started before Thursday though - I'm flying to London and have a rehearsal tomorrow, so should be packing right now. I wish I had a direwolf to help...

Keep calm and throw things in the suitcase like Arya ^_^ If you're busy, we'll work something out, no worries...

Just remember to hide your needle at the bottom

[nanother]

Keep calm and throw things in the suitcase like Arya ^_^ If you're busy, we'll work something out, no worries...

Now, about magic - what does everyone here think - will magic die out in the end? Will religion take it's place in the trio Tyryan suggested? Like it did in our world... at least according to the Golden Bow :read:

I shouldn't be too busy apart from tonight/tomorrow...

As for religion replacing magic - I hope not. I won't go into real world parallels for fear of starting a flame war, but in ASoIaF, the power behind gods seems to be magic itself, so if it's gone, any religion is bound to be pure deception...

[wolfmaid7]

Thanks BC for an awesome intro to 37...Dang there moving at light speed.

As to the question of whether or not Magic will die out i'm more inclined to think it will evolve Magic is an example of power( energy) if you will and as the Law of Conservation of energy states."Energy cannot be created or destroyed,it can only be transformed".Since it is neither good nor evil the way it manifests depends on the vessel that taps into it.

Which brings me to a conversation Leaf had with Bran in ADWD: "The giants are almost gone as well... The great lions of the western hills have been slain, the unicorns are all but gone, the mammoths down to a few hundred. The direwolves will outlast us all, but their time will come as well."

​ I think if the balance is not restored Sorcery will take the place of magic.Magic is working with power while sorcery is using power to manipulate. Val had it right sorcery is a sword without a hilt.

[Black Crow]

As for religion replacing magic - I hope not. I won't go into real world parallels for fear of starting a flame war, but in ASoIaF, the power behind gods seems to be magic itself, so if it's gone, any religion is bound to be pure deception...

I have a suspicion that's the point of the Faith of the Seven.

We've discussed before how there doesn't appear to be any obvious magical backing to them, as for example with the Old Gods, or even the Red lot, but perhaps that's the point and that its been constructed by taking familiar elements from the old (magic-based) religions, such as the Morrigan's maiden, mother and crone and knitted them into a new but hollow religion devoid of magic

[nanother]

I have a suspicion that's the point of the Faith of the Seven.

We've discussed before how there doesn't appear to be any obvious magical backing to them, as for example with the Old Gods, or even the Red lot, but perhaps that's the point and that its been constructed by taking familiar elements from the old (magic-based) religions, such as the Morrigan's maiden, mother and crone and knitted them into a new but hollow religion devoid of magic

It certainly feels like that. I just hope it's only a dead end in the Westerosi development of magic and not a foreshadowing of things to come...

[Black Crow]

Or putting it another way, perhaps that's why there's a distinction made between the Old Gods (magic) and the New (non-magical), as in when Jaqen H'gar swears by the Old Gods and the New

And with that, after a splendid day's discussion, I bid you all good night.

[Tyryan Lannister]

Not Heresy, but....

NEW SAMPLE CHAPTER!!!!!

It's an Arianne http://georgerrmartin.com/if-sample.html

There's a forum in the Winds of Winter subforum on it http://asoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/topic/79229-sample-arianne-i/#entry3980860

[Tyryan Lannister]

Not Heresy, but....

NEW SAMPLE CHAPTER!!!!!

It's an Arianne http://georgerrmarti.../if-sample.html

There's a forum in the Winds of Winter subforum on it http://asoiaf.wester...i/#entry3980860

Just my Heretical take on it: nothing Heresy related that I could tell, but an interesting read nonetheless

basically just Arianne on the way to JonCon and Aegon, mostly just them wondering about what type of people those two are, they question whether Aegon is real or not (thus adding fuel to that fire), talk about not knowing Quentyn's fate, questioning what type of Queen Dany will be if/when she arrives. The only thing that really piqued my interest was a subtle hint that Aurane Waters might have set himself up as a Pirate King in the Stepstones