LmL

I discussed the purple valerian flower a bunch in my bloodstone emperor essays. The valerian is a member of the heliotropium genus, and and heliotrope is another name for bloodstone. George has an entire line of moon symbolism having to do with flowers - think of Lyanna's rose - but of course the moon meteors are described as dragons and swords, and they come from the moon. If the moon is the flower, Lightbribger is the iron thorn. I believe that is what the connection is between women and swords. This idea also manifests with all the comparisons between the battle of steel blades and the battle of the birthing bed. The impact of the comet into the moon can be depicted as a stabbing or as an impregnation - that's what that whole "bloody sword" thing with Lady Barbrey and Brandon Stark was about in ADWD. Getting back to the valerian flower being purple and a type of heliotropium, this also signifies that the Valyrians descend from the Bloodstone Emperor and the Great Empire of the Dawn, an hypothesis I have already proposed using a completely different line of evidence.

As for crowning and killing, the Queenmaker chapter is full of it. They talk about crowning Myrcella being the same as killing her, and Darkstar says "this is how you get what you want, with a sword of steel and not a crown of a gold." (paraphrase) I think all of this has to do with moon sickles and moon halos. The crescent moon is associated with curved sacrificial knives, animal horns, and also crowns. "The moon crowned the moon maiden" is another line for that Arianna chapter - it refers to the moon appearing over top a constellation called the Moon Maid. She's crowned with a moon sickle then slashed with one (Darkstar's sword). This all goes back to Nissa Nissa the sacrificed moon maiden. Because here was an eclipse alignment when the moon cracked (it wandered too close to the sun), the moon was crowned with a golden halo right before it was sacrificed. Thats why crowning and killing is the same for moon people in ASOIAF.

Yeah good luck with that. Most people think the plot is pretty good.

There are several with the moon tears motif. The tears of Lys and Lysa's tears refer to the same thing, the moon's very deadly tears. When Oberyn gives Obara the choice of weapon between his spear and his mother's tears, that's a joke because the mother's tears (the moon mother's anyway) are actually spears: sun-spears. The last line of that story is that her mother died crying. Just like Lysa (notice how many times tears are mentions in her death scene), and the second moon that fell from heaven. As for wall and wail... the wall is a Lightbringer symbol, as is Widows Wail, so is the Wall a "widow's wall?" It may well be - there might be a black stone foundation under all that ice, and if it's black moon meteor stone... there you go. Also, Ygritte says the Wall was made with blood, and certainly Lightbringer was made with blood (Widow's Wail as well). The Wall weeps red fire and black ice, as I mentioned, so we can see that wailing widows and weeping walls both produce Lightbringer symbols. Thats what I got for ya in that department. What did you think of "grey-gore?" And have we discussed the Bolt-on family?

I can tell you that all the wailing and crying of widows goes back to Nissa Nissa's cry of agony and ecstasy which broke the moon. It happens ALL THE TIME during Lightbringer forging metaphors. A great example would be when Mel gives a cry of anguish and ecstasy when she births the shadow baby. During the Oberyn and Gregor fight, both Cersei and Ellaria emit Widow's Wails at key moments. Nissa Nissa's cry broke the moon, and the sword Widow's Wail represents the red comet (for many reasons I have laid out in my podcasts). The red comet broke the moon, as did NN's cry - and he sword Widows Wail refers to both. Same for the dragonbinder horn, whose shivering hot scream splits the air like a sword. I don't need to get into the whole thing about sound and moon splitting here, but since you're talking about wailing... thought I would throw that in. Theres also a thing about the tears of the moon. The moon is like an eye, and when it was struck by the Lightbringer comet, it wept bleeding stars. Lyanna weeps bloody tears, the Lyssa weeps copiously as she is tossed out the moon door, with Alyssa's ghost torrent of tears falling nearby as a parallel. The Wall weeps in a scene with Jon snow, and he sees the meltwater in the cracks turn from streaks of red fire to black ice. Red fire refers to falling meteors, while black ice refers to comet nuclei (black ice) and Valyrian steel made from moon meteors (Neds black sword Ice). Black ice and red fire, an important combo - Jon dreamt of wielding a burning red sword while armored in black ice, you'll recall. Widows Wail and Oathkeeper are black ice, now decorated with red blood and a bit of gold flame (the hilt and cross guard). Essentially, Widows Wail is a sword named after the moon's death cry and which symbolizes it's bloody meteor tears. Neds Ice was directly compared to the comet by Arya, and indeed, Neds sword drinks his own blood, just as Lightbringer drank Nissa Nissa's blood. Lightbringer contains the essence of NN, and according to me theory, it was made from a moon meteor. The moon is Nissa Nissa in a sense, so LB was NN's sword which drank her own blood and became a sword of fire. Neds sword drinks his blood and is then decorated with flame. It WILL eventually light up with fire (prediction), and that fire will match its coloring - black shot through with red and bits of gold. Blackfyre, in other words. Much more on all these topics in my last podcast (link in my signature), if anyone is interested.

Sansa is a moon maiden in the Nissa Nissa tradition and therefore has many scenes replaying the birth of dragons from the lunar egg. I've discussed this at length in my podcasts, particularly in the one titled "Waves of Night and Moon Blood." The bleeding her moon blood and then burning it while AZor Ahai look-a-like Stannis Baratheon fills the air with smoke that blots out the sky, her turning into a "bat wolf," and most of all her medusa-like black amethyst hairnet, symbolized as a head full of purple snakes. Those are the moon dragons. The Butterbumps scene is absolutely about dragons hatching. The symbolism reversed a bit - the sun lays the egg (notice BBumps is round and yellow) and the moon hatches it - but it's the same story. When BBumps spits seeds everywhere, those are the dragonseeds - the meteors - spewing forth from the sun. So yes, bats and dragons are somewhat equivalent in many cases. Also, the night messenger / blood sucker aspects of bats fits the nature of the black moon meteors perfectly. Remember that Lightbringer drank Nissa Nissa's blood - that's part of the deal. As for food symbolism, you guys are right to link eggs with the moon. That's exactly the idea. Fried and boiled eggs refers to the moon cracking from the sun's heat, and to the landing of a dragon meteor in the ocean (the sea dragon). In the moon blood scene with Sansa, Sansa herself is the moon egg. She burns her moon blood and soaks herself in scalding water. Then she eats fried and boiled eggs, after frying and boiling herself or her moon blood. Same story told two different ways in the same scene.

In my last podcast I noticed that Gregor of the grey armor becomes covered in gore from head to heel during his fight with Oberyn. Grey-gore? Seems so. Also, I'm glad someone else noticed the "Jojen in a wooden bole" thing. I wrote about that on Reddit a few months ago and it was like *crickets.*. I thought it was clear foreshadowing - "look, Jojen is in a wooden bole!" but no one was impressed. George makes double entendres with "others" all the time, unless I'm going mad. There's a ton of punnery in general with all the mythical astronomy, but a lot of them would not make sense to those who haven't listened to my podcast so I won't list them here. Moon blood is a big one, for example. But yeah... Martin loves his wordplay.

To the above I'll add that on mobile (iPhone), we've had a reversal of progress. Now the page is back to loading in a very tiny column on the left with a ton of blank space, and when you zoom in to make it fit and click on the notifications icon, the info loads way out in the no man's land and you have to zoom way out and back in to see the actual notification. It was doing this right after the upgrade, then it was fixed. Now it's screwed up again. For me, at least.

Thanks Linda, you're the best. :)

Many dittos on this one. Indent is a super useful feature which makes longer posts easier to look at / organize / etc. We can always adapt but if it's possible to add it, that would be great. :)

Hilarious juxtaposition there. I mean... really. Did you do that on purpose? Modesty? Heresy? Bwah ha ha ha (sorry to derail but I could not resist...)

Hilarious juxtaposition there. I mean... really. Did you do that on purpose? Modesty? Heresy? Bwah ha ha ha (sorry to derail but I could not resist...)

FWIW, notifications don't seem to be working. I'm subscribed to this thread, but I am not getting notifications when someone comments here. I was getting them last night, but not today.

Thanks Linda, that's very good to hear. *takes down nasty Yelp review of Invision* (chuckle chuckle)

This might be a dumb question, but these forum-maker people seem kinda shitty... has there been any thought to use someone else's software altogether? Screw these people, since they won't even respond to email or support their own product, that kind of thing? I'm guessing it raises a whole host of other issues or you would have done it, but I had to ask. It's pretty damn super lame for them to have such a large client and just leave you dangling in the wind.

One thing I can say about the signatures and posts running together: if everyone will kindly center-justify their signatures, it helps a bit. Also, using grey text in signatures helps and makes them a tad less obnoxious. No too much less obnoxious - wouldn't want to overdo it now - but a little less so. As for most recent comment on a thread: when you're looking through the list of topics, on the far right it shows the picture of the last person to comment and under the pic, it says "30 min" or however long it's been. Click on the "30 min" itself and you go to the last post. Not the last one you've read, but the last one in the thread at least.

I just wanted to say you have my sympathy; computers only seem to get more and more frustrating and unreliable as the become more complex.    I got a little peak and the new skin when you guys activated for a few hours last month, and it look sensational, so I am really excited for it whenever it gets sorted out... seems like it will be worth it.   I'll cross my fingers for you and burn some sacred herbs to drive away the computer demons.  :thumbsup:

Yes, it is

  You guys aren't going to post them here for scrutiny?

Ah, well, that's very good news. I had been holding back on posting anything... but in this case... muah ha ha

I just wanted to pile on the "thanks a lot for everything you do, Elio and Linda" bandwagon here. Loved TWOAIF, love the site and forum, don't know what life would be like without them. You guys make George's life easier so he can write more by helping with things like TWOIAF, which we all appreciate as well.   :cheers:   I'm sure you'll get the software sorted out sooner or later... everyone knows software and computers are as basically unreliable and mysterious as waking dragons from stone. It'll work right eventually, but god only knows how much bloodshed it will require. ;)

Voice, you've made about a good a case for Jon as a Dayne as anyone, why don't you take it? Or do you prefer Gerold + Lyanna? I do think your idea the RLJ is true, but Lyanna gave birth at Starfall to be fairly plausible, I just want to tell you.

I'm not in denial, I just have too many damn essays to write. ;) There are a ton of these back threads of heresy that look really tasty too that I'd like to read. But... dark lightbringer must be born. :devil:

Yes, all of this, and you know who doesn't have any say at all in the succession? Ellaria. Yeah, not even going there.