The Fattest Leech

Understandable. I have to get back to work (coffee break over ), but if you decide to start a thread about Shade trees, tag me. Better there than off topic here

Oh totally. GRRM is having all sorts of fun between Old Nan and we readers. I love it!

Correct. Further more, the only time we hear of giants doing anything amoral (?) is when we hear of the one in Volantis... a fire ridden element city. Old Nan, gods love her, is biased.

Shade trees are their own "thing", own species or whatever you want to call it. They are corrupted in the sense that they are put in the path of the fire elements such as Dany and Euron, but of those two, only Dany can beet them (which is another reason of many we know Euron will fail masterfully and hilariously). Dany's HotU experience also tried to teach her various wisdom and and speech. She refused because she is being set up as such for the final ending. A major difference between the trees is one acts a "library", the Acedemy of Human Knowledge if you know what I mean, so any consuming is to benefit all in the end (history lessons to grow from). The Shade trees consume, as fire does, to benefit the self. Look at all the times in-story where readers are told and shown that fire is a "greedy god". .it "consumes" and feeds the self. So many readers "fall" for the seeming trope GRRM is using here and assume that all of *this* is the same in ASOIAF when it is not. A main, MAIN, ideological conundrum GRRM gives his characters (& readers) is the all important decision of self choice, to think for yourself... to NOT follow the greeshka because it consumes to feed it's own self needs. UPDATING TO ADD QUOTE of Dany and her genetic memory: A Game of Thrones - Daenerys VI "No. He cannot have my son." She would not weep, she decided. She would not shiver with fear. The Usurper has woken the dragon now, she told herself … and her eyes went to the dragon's eggs resting in their nest of dark velvet. The shifting lamplight limned their stony scales, and shimmering motes of jade and scarlet and gold swam in the air around them, like courtiers around a king. Was it madness that seized her then, born of fear? Or some strange wisdom buried in her blood? Dany could not have said. She heard her own voice saying, "Ser Jorah, light the brazier." "Khaleesi?" The knight looked at her strangely. "It is so hot. Are you certain?" I can see what you mean (I think). Again, self choice. There are no "gods" in ASOIAF that re going to walk on page, just what a character thinks of themself at the time. Humans created the religion. There is, however, a "fifth element" universal (whatever you want to call it) that a person of an extreme tendency can use for there own means... if they have a propensity for it. For instance, Dany learns the secrets to fire birthing dragons by watching MMD this whole time, then she says to herself that her knowledge is "buried in her blood". GRRM has said Dany and Bran are the two most magical in the series and we can see them growing and learning side by side, but it's what they do with their knowledge and wisdom that will endure in the end. So yeah, there is a moral element to it, but it is within the user not the object.

Hard disagree that BR looks like anything to do with Qarth aside from GRRM playing with red herrings. There is life in a weirwood unlike the desiccated undying ones. Bran was always interested in "scary kid stories" and Old Nan (an undying one) loved to tell him these stories to give him chills. The point to Bran being introduced (as it is for readers) to the scary stories (as he was introduced to being the leader of Winterfell at a young age) is to prepare for the near future of events that are about to happen in TWOW and beyond. FIre is the Greeshka, almost word for word when you compare the stories line by line. Literally. All of those ruby jewlery bits are like the small greeshka that eventually join to the larger mother. Adding: and this even includes bells being run that are connected to the blood-fire-death-greeshka elements in both stories. Line by line Greeshka are fire-elementals. For those reading this forum post that do not know what GRRM's greeshka are... here ya go... https://fattestleechoficeandfire.com/a-song-for-lya-transcribed/

Something else that struck me a while back is Dalla's name is possibly derived from the Swedish Dala horse, and we know GRRM as said he studied Sweden's history, especially it's wars. GRRM has his running theme of fire-elementals burning the green/horse-elementals (Ramsay w/ Theon, Rhaegar w/Lyanna, etc) and Dalla being "burned/consumed" while giving birth at the wall while Stannis & Mel invaded is interesting, especially since GRRM said what Mel was doing there when the birthing was happening meant something else was "going on". "According to the legend, soldiers loyal to King Charles XII were quartered in the Dalecarlian region and carved the toys as gifts for their hosts."

It as all the correct magic words to entice me

Only for a minute until the coffee is done brewing

GRRM has been writing and publishing stories for more years than many current readers have been alive. He has at least 72 stories out there published (fully outside of anything ASOIAF related) and a very common theme running through his stories is the zealotry of religion. Religion he doesn't have an "issue" with, but rather the zealous practice of such beliefs and how it "consumes" those who are overtaken with it. It is part of HIS history. Melisandre is what is known in Martinworld as a "meathouse girl". She is powered by the far right red/fire side.

I think this sounds familiar, but I am questioning myself and wondering if this is something Sansa does for Dontos at Joffery's name day? Basically Sansa saving Dontos at the time.

Is this the only mention of Daenerys getting or using/wearing this feathered cloak? I searched a bit more but there's always that chance my search terms are off. Thanks A Game of Thrones - Daenerys VI Dany smiled shyly. It was sweet to laugh. She felt half a girl again. They wandered for half the morning. She saw a beautiful feathered cloak from the Summer Isles, and took it for a gift. In return, she gave the merchant a silver medallion from her belt. That was how it was done among the Dothraki. A birdseller taught a green-and-red parrot to say her name, and Dany laughed again, yet still refused to take him. What would she do with a green-and-red parrot in a khalasar? She did take a dozen flasks of scented oils, the perfumes of her childhood; she had only to close her eyes and sniff them and she could see the big house with the red door once more. When Doreah looked longingly at a fertility charm at a magician's booth, Dany took that too and gave it to the handmaid, thinking that now she should find something for Irri and Jhiqui as well.

Happy one year enderversary

Quick question for anyone who follows book to show Plotzee! The world famous game of chopping up the books, scrambling them in a blender, then rearranging the pieces to create something... more brokener What do you think are the chances that the letter Jon wrote in AFFC/ADWD to Cersei in King's Landing asking for help with the common foe (the Others), that was then discussed by Cersei in her AFFC 4 chapter where she ignores his pleas and instead conspires to kill him was remade into the wight hunt idea? Is it possible this was a D&D Plotzee! rework for that 'wight in a box", err, event? I was just discussing this scene elsewhere on the forum when this possibility inhabited my brain. I am kind of thinking it is a "rework" and that it adds to the mounting list of reasons we won't see a wight hunt in the books. A Feast for Crows - Cersei IV Cersei gave him a sharp look. "What are you saying?" "This," Qyburn said. "For years now, the Night's Watch has begged for men. Lord Stannis has answered their plea. Can King Tommen do less? His Grace should send the Wall a hundred men. To take the black, ostensibly, but in truth . . ." ". . . to remove Jon Snow from the command," Cersei finished, delighted. I knew I was right to want him on my council. "That is just what we shall do." She laughed. If this bastard boy is truly his father's son, he will not suspect a thing. Perhaps he will even thank me, before the blade slides between his ribs. "It will need to be done carefully, to be sure. Leave the rest to me, my lords." This was how an enemy should be dealt with: with a dagger, not a declaration. "We have done good work today, my lords. I thank you. Is there aught else?"

Oh lawdy, lawdy This is one of the "classic" D&D twists that still makes no sense to this day. And to make it worse, it was re-quote-twisted by other reporters as being something that was never said

Thanks