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Black Crow

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  1. Nice summary and all that I'd add at this point is that while Varamyr and his prologue are incredibly useful/important in this interpretation, he's only a skinchanger and has no connection to direwolves. GRRM has been very close-lipped about the difference between skinchangers and wargs and I strongly suspect that we'll discover that its wargs [like Jon] who can still remain free - unlike Varamyr who finishes up being trapped in One Eye. In other words the get out of jail free card when Jon goes to Ghost
  2. There's no doubt at all that White Walkers are dangerous with a capital D. My point is that they aint an army waiting to invade Westeros. They aint the Dothraki and so the nature of the threat is very different
  3. As to the first, they are certainly a long way apart if they are expected to walk [no pun intended] but if riding the cold winds passing between the two locations could take no time at all. As to the second, there is an obscure but very significant SSM explaining... Posted 16 March 2015 - 04:47 PM "In an interruption to our advertised program I'm watching a feature on Sky Atlantic, providing a catch up on the HBO series thus far and featuring interviews with [among others] GRRM, who has just confirmed that when Sam pinked Ser Puddles "he broke the spell holding him together."
  4. Really wouldn't surprise me. Whatever the precise detail of the story eventually turns out to be, the Starks are just as compromised as the Targaryens - but on the other side
  5. We're Heretics because for years we've discussed what might really be going on, looking beyond the simplistic notion of a big bad up north and the world being saved by the return of Azor Ahai and the dragons. Inevitably, as this leads to questioning certain orthodoxies, we've attracted a fair degree of hate over the years. We're used to it.
  6. I'd be wary of getting too hooked up on the White Walkers on this, or rather it may be a mistake to work on the basis that they were running the show, when in reality they may turn out to be the servants. I'm still very much of the opinion that there's a fairly fundamental misconception of their role in that while they're obviously dangerous individuals we've not so far seen any real evidence that they constitute an army
  7. And then a quick thought about the big scaly beasties of this thread... In the previous post I emphasised how there were six white walkers, six direwolf pups and six children Suppose the same is true on the other side? Danaerys is given three eggs which obviously end up hatching into three dragons In the House of the Undying she's given a vision of Rhaegar, who declares pretty heavily that there must be a third Discussion of this scene has tended to concentrate on who the "third" might be, but looking at the direwolves there's another explanation. If the six direwolves were intended to bond with the six children of Winterfell, was Rhaegar referring to a bonding with the three dragons ?
  8. Just a thought running on from the above, but in a different direction... We've [separately] discussed both the nature of the White Walkers and the arrival of the direwolf pups, but I think there's an interesting implication resulting. We've been struck by the fact that the delivery of the six pups may be connected with the Prologue of AGOT in which that patrol is scragged by six White Walkers. When its pointed out that the six pups equate to the six children of Winterfell, there's general agreement that they're meant to have them and then later Jon Snow realises that his direwolf at least belongs to the Old Gods. What of the other ones? Separately, we've discussed the nature of White Walkers and come up with a pretty solid theory that they may be Wargs, released by death and instead of being sucked into a second life with their familiars as happens to ordinary skinchangers, they can create new bodies of snow and ice and cold. If so, then the six White Walkers who scragged Ser Waymar Royce and his men could easily find berths in the six pups delivered to the six Stark children. Now, the thought that occurs from there, is that we're pretty familiar with those pups and with the possible exception of Shaggydog, they aint evil, which in turn suggests that if they did once tread lightly on the snow, those Walkers may not be as evil as we have been led to suppose. Lets see what happens to Jon
  9. GRRM has been deliberately vague about the convergence of widely separated events, so the fact that the wolves turn up at the beginning of AGoT and the dragons at the end oughtn't to be regarded as significant in terms of timing or of cause and effect, other that both are engineered. In Westeros six white walkers scrag a patrol from the Nights Watch in the Haunted Forest. At some point afterwards the only survivor turns up below the Wall and thereby leads the Starks to the six direwolf cubs sent to them by the Old Gods In Essos, Danaerys Targaryen is given three dragon eggs which later mysteriously hatch into beasties not hitherto seen for hundreds of years. In terms of story pages the hatching obviously happens long after the appearance of the direwolves, but given that Danaerys was given the eggs at about the same time we can't conclude that the hatching is a reaction.
  10. All things are possible, but I think that you need more than a couple of possible parallels - and reasons/consequences
  11. Yes, they've been around for a while. We don't really know on account of their being mysterious like, but I get the impression that they've been around longer than Jon has, but what I think is important is that the supposed threat - this looming invasion by the six icy lads and now their growing collection of undead, is rather more recent than Jon's birth
  12. Ordinarily, no, certainly not. Apart from anything else I don't have access to Sky, so haven't a clue what's going on, but... While what's been mentioned wasn.t even in Fire and Blood, GRRM explicitly raised it in interview, saying that while it hadn't previously been published and so was a bit controversial it is indeed canon - there was some discussion of this on the last thread when I raised exactly the same point
  13. I certainly wouldn't hang an argument on it either way, but the chronology of the different threads isn't synchronised That said its clear that the Walkers were around - if only coming calling at Craster's, but that kinda emphasises it. Early on we're talking about a handful of individuals lurking in the woods, not the reputed army supposedly on the point of invading along with hordes of wights.
  14. In this case I'm suggesting that the pact was to renounce the Ice and Fire. The dragons are gone and the Starks are no longer Kings of Winter. However... Danaerys Targaryen has been led to hatch her dragons and so the white cold iswalking
  15. Oh indeed. In all honesty while alternate fathers are proposed [Arthur Dayne being a notable one] I'm not convinced its worth the effort and would happily settle for a bare-bones R+L=J, where I have reservations is over the proposed centrality of the argument and the assumptions anent where its going
  16. If you mean fighting against her - as a threat trying [perhaps unknowingly] to bring the dragons back, then it may well be To a degree and quite understandably she's portrayed as a hero in this story, when in reality she's Typhoid Mary on Speed
  17. Not the usual topic for an Heresy OP, but it follows on from discussion which came up in the last thread. There’s a theory out there, commonly referred to as R+L=J, holding that Jon Snow is actually the son of Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark. Both are conveniently dead and unavailable for comment, but the point, supposedly, is that Jon is really a Targaryen Prince [with a secret name!] and thanks to being half Targaryen and half Stark will turn out to be the legendary Oriental hero Azor Ahai and will ride dragons to victory over the mysterious Others/White Walkers and win the Battle for the Dawn. While the band plays “Believe it if you like”… As Heretics we have our doubts about this of course, but in the light of a couple of references in the Mummers’ Version Mk.II, its worth shifting the question sideways a bit, because in promoting the R+L=J theory its all to easy to lose sight of something important. Contrary to the impression created by the Mummers’ Version Mk.I, GRRM is not engaged in writing multiple volumes of A Game of Thrones, but a saga entitled A Song of Ice and Fire. The Dragons, obviously, Danaerys Targaryen and Mad Mel, clearly come within the heading of Fire, but thus far we haven’t seen much of the Ice and waving the R+L=J/AA banner makes this imbalance worse by trying to stuff Jon Snow on to the side of Fire. And its that Fire which raises concern. At first we were told how Azor Ahai would save the day when the Ice came, but them GRRM started dropping some hints that a victory by fire might not be as warm and cuddly as it first appeared. Now we hear, thanks to the Mummers Mk.II of the Pact of Ice and Fire, and there it gets interesting. We still don't know what its about, or was intended to be about because seemingly it never happened, but... A pact is an agreement, a binding agreement and seemingly one between equals, which immediately raises questions and requires dialling back in history on both sides of the proposed pact. On the one hand we have the Targaryens. They are Valyrians and Dragonlords, but perhaps not actually all that they seem. Back in the day and seemingly influenced by prophecy they moved out of Valyria proper and settled in Dragonstone on the very edge of the empire. Thus they escaped the Doom, which is obviously good. They even hung on to some dragons but then something strange happened. A war or series of wars breaks out in Essos as the local population rises up against the rump Valyrian colonial administration. Not at all unexpected, but Aegon Targaryen joins the rebels and pitches in against the Valyrians. Then he turns his back on Essos as well and goes and conquers Westeros - sort of Or rather, using his dragons he starts conquering the seven kingdoms by frying any opposition until he gets to the southern border of the North. History, for what its worth, says that the Stark king surrendered or submitted. Aegon tuned back south and the Stark remained - although he may no longer have called himself the King of Winter. Why ? If we are looking for a pact of Ice and Fire then there may be something of an equality here between the Stark Kings of Winter and the Targaryen Dragonlords But then there's more. There’s also that mysterious warning that the Targaryen mastery over the dragons was an illusion. We may also discover over time that it was some of the Targaryens themselves, not some mysterious maesters, who killed off the dragons first time around. What if that too was a part of the Pact of Ice and Fire which both families have forgotten. Of course if it is, it throws an interesting - and dangerous - light on Danaerys Targaryen hatching three healthy dragons and so perhaps breaking the Pact
  18. Danaerys the Dragonlord doesn't come into it. The original synopsis linked Jon and Arya although some of us reckoned on Heresy that as written GRRM was going to substitute Sansa for Arya instead as being closer in age. All that the mummers' version has done is confirm this.
  19. Their passion will continue to torment Jon and Arya throughout the trilogy, until the secret of Jon's true parentage is finally revealed in the last book. [GRRM 1993]
  20. Agreed. While death may no longer be what it once was, having died is bound to knock Jon sideways. Now that being said, I have a suspicion as to where this is going. In the book, when Mance Rayder is about to attack Castle Black Jon is called upon to take command, but is reluctant until Aegon Targaryen proclaims "You are a son of Winterfell. It must be you or no-one!" It is such a splendid line I was surprised and puzzled that the mummers didn't use it. Instead, however, we know from the trailer that Sansa is going to succeed in getting herself an army but we've also seen the reservations about her on the one hand and about "Lord Snow" on the other. Therefore I can easily see the line being used by Sansa to rouse Jon and get the army to follow him as a son of Winterfell.
  21. Inevitably we're now into two different texts given that the master one hasn't been completed far less published, but the mummers are aware of the milestones and as I've just said on the main thread I'll be interested to see how long the dam lasts before the milestones are "released" for discussion, given that they are already all over the internet.
  22. I wouldn't necessarily get too excited. There are three possible outcomes. We could learn the truth of R+L=J although I think this unlikely, its not explicit in the book so there would have to be a major change. Secondly we could learn that Jon's father is Ser Arthur Dayne, who appears to feature very prominently in the trailers. Either is possible, but without delving into the relative merits of either it doesn't feel like the right time. Jon is far far away and has a lot of other stuff on his mind, including perhaps a battle for Winterfell as the season finale. On the whole I'm very much more inclined to think that the vision may largely revolve around Meera's father saving Bran's father from Ser Arthur, which would fit well with Bran's current story-line
  23. As I recall, in the last season there was a walk on appearance by Master Benero - as a woman. I suspect that the one in the previews might be called [or at least filling in for] Moqorro
  24. No need to skim; the Heresy OP always includes a link.
  25. Its more a matter of knowing or not knowing the individual personally.
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