sweetsunray

The cold "bites": frostbite. And you don't actually feel it when it does.

It's also the grove where Ghost discovers the two wights they find early on, the ones they drag to CB and steal into Jeor's bedchamber. Jon finds the door of the room he was locked into open and a dead NW man. But before even trying the door, Ghost is acting out of sorts and he wakes from the incredible cold, despite the fact that on that hot late summer day, the Wall was weeping. I've been wondering, whether it's a hint that the wights were close to the grove, but not actually within its perimeter.

Fell also means "skin". In Dutch we say "vel". EDIT TO ADD COMING! So, an Arson (heat/flame) "felling" is "skinchanging a tree". While the Others may not go South, a warm blooded person was never meant to be kept from crossing either north or south. And can a "flame" be an Other?

Also we learn that not only the weirwoods were hacked down, but First Men defended it along with the cotf. Side note: True History is a book written by maesters that is pure Andal propagandashit. You can throw away any claim it ever makes. It's main aim is to make Andals look as peaceful people and architectural geniuses who built Storm's End and without whom the First Keep of Winterfell would never have been built. That's why it claims the Long Night happened 8000 years ago, instead of 6000, and claims the Andals invaded Westeros 4000 years ago instead of 2000. It aims to shift the Andal invasion back in time, so they can claim and appropriate culture and technology from 4000-5000 years ago, while they didn't have that at the time. No Andal ever built anything with stone ever in Andalos. There's not one stone ruin of the Andals to be found anywhere in Andalos. Even the last Andal king on Lorath built his "palace fort" out of wood at the heart of the stone maze of the mysterious mazemakers, and by then Norvos was already a thriving Free City, and the dragonlords of Old Valyria wiped him and his people out on Lorath, after which a new people made it a Free City (around 1700 BC). Andals learned to build in stone from the First Men, not the other way around. Anyway, back to High Heart: so True History's lies can be dismissed and instead we have a "song" that is quite poetic and detailed. Clouds of ravens and armies of wolves (aka greenseers, skinchangers, but also second lives). And greenseers died at this grove. Where would these dying greenseers have chosen to live their second life? The trees or the beasts?

Well Arson Iceaxe: a flame axing ice, suggest to me not trees being felled, but fire chipping away at the ice imprisoning them. In that sense it's good to put a heat source inside the Wall, to prevent the ice from freezing the weirwoods to death. I keep thinking of Jon praying for the Wall to defend itself against the wildling climbers. What happens? The Wall shudders and the wildlings fall to their death as ice breaks. If we consider weirwoods inside the Wall, then the "Old Gods" heard and answered Jon's prayer. They made the weirwood shudder and shake off some of the ice.

Or there already may have been a good set of them, and they planted sapplings in between, or used blood lettings to sprout extra in between?

Initially, size would not have mattered. A sappling weirwood has power too. But I do think there's an extra ingredient/ritual in casting a ward, so that basically the sanctuary or ward comes into existence almost simultaneously as long as you have at least a sappling. That imo involves shedding blood: think Beric using his own blood to flame a sword. I don't think that anymore blood than a palm slash is actually necessary. But people forget and fill in the gaps themselves: oh we need "blood sacrifice" to make this sappling we just planted protect us instantly? Let's go capture this poor shmuck and slash his throat. I'm not saying the latter is what happened in the making of the ward of the sappling weirwood treeline. I'm saying that this tale later got "bastardized" into human sacrifice, and since greenseers most definitely were used as judges on caught criminals, eventually this led to "hanging bloody entrails" in tree branches. The advice here is: less is more, and people muck it up, always.

I agree that the evidence for the weirwoods inside the ice at the Nightfort is so "duh" once pointed out, and I'm completely on board of a weirwood treeline as the Wall perimeter and being the skeleton on which the ice wall happened to end up being built. It actually resolves certain issues with the Black Gate, such as Brandon the Builder choosing it for a second life, and the complete theory about the ice soldiers, which I fundamentally disagree with every way, helped gel George's repeated mention of how the snow wall is being built against the ward at Bloodraven's cave, and consider why some weirwoods end up encased in ice, but others do not (Bloodraven's cave).

I also have a proposal why I think in the end Brandon the Builder chose the weirwood with its Black Gate for its second life. More and more evidence points indeed to Brandon the Builder leading a second life in that weirwood tree, and to him being a wildfire greenseer (green + dragonblood/fireblood). I'm not going to elaborate on this for now (I'm working on it) I believe this is a counter against the Others' secondary wall of ice. Here's why: As Sandy Clegg and other posters here have pointed out: when trees freeze up, they might "blow up", and cease to exist. Varamyr's prologue show how a weirwood can end up being completely frozen by the cold of the Others and their cold servants. And if there is a natural protection that weirwoods create just by existing at least up to some level, we can see how the weirwood ending up frozen in the prologue lifts any shelter that Varamyr and Thistle could have had. Therefore the reason why the Others countered the invisible ward created by the weirnet and weirwoods with an ice wall was not just to keep people from coming north, but to destroy the weirwoods imprisoned in it and in this way destroy the ward. We see how at Bloodraven's cave the snow wall builds up at the entrance of the cave. This does not destroy the ward by itself. But if we extrapolate, we can see how over more time, more cold and more snow and more ice will creep up on the grove above the caves. But those weirwoods have not yet been affected by the cold and snow and ice whatsoever. Why? Because most of a certain greenseer beneath it has gone "into the tree" already, and that certain greenseer is a wildfire greenseer - Brynden Rivers, aka Bloodraven. It is Bloodraven's dragonblood that nourishes the weirwood with extra "heat" to keep it from being frozen by the magical cold of the Others. Eventually his intention is to choose to go completely in the tree and choose it for his second life, so it will continue to withstand the magical cold of the Others, that even when eventually encapsulated in ice and snow it can melt the ice around it, from the inside, and keep it alive and preserve the sanctuary. I believe that Brandon the Builder was a similar wildfire greenseer. While he lived his life at Winterfell, eventually extending even his life with the weirwood, the Others built their ice wall, imprisoning the weirwood treeline. At some point (the Night's KIng time) the weirwood treeline was under threat of ending up frozen like the weirwood in Varamyr's prologue, and the ward was under threat. He then chose not to have his second life in an animal, or even the weirwood of Winterfell. He chose the weirwood of the Black Gate for his second life, so it would have his heat to protect the core of the ward. If there are 79+1 weirwoods across the whole perimeter, then each of them was some wildfire greenseer or even skinchanger who was sacrificed to lead his second life in the tree, which would not work unless they chose to (Varamyr has the option to choose the tree, instead he chooses his wolf). That is how the weirwood trees inside the Wall continued to survive. It seems though that this heat protection can be overcome by the Others (and the assassination on Jon's life triggers this imo). Mel burning any weirwood tree (yelp the Black Gate) would finalize it imo. I also think that the assassination attempt on Jon's life will end up drawing Bran into attempting to help remotely, and thereby forcing Bloodraven to skinchange into Mormont's raven just as he is about to die. He ends up in Mormont's raven for his second life instead of the weirwood grove at his cave. Since Bran is not a wildfire greenseer he cannot protect the weirwood grove from being frozen, and thus must leave the cave via the backdoor.

I'm going to summarize the three huge flaws once more with this theory as a whole and its conclusion: the Black Gate's tear, which is the base of a giant weirwood in the heart of the ice wall: it is wet and warm! So, the core of the Wall is warm, not cold. This goes against the claim that the wall is naturally melting on the outside but being refrozen on the inside. The warm tear of the Black Gate actually points in the opposite direction of the theory's conclusion: the weirwood tree(s) are the cause of the Wall's weeping. AKA, the weirwoods imprisoned in the ice are trying to melt the ice and liberate themselves. It makes total sense that a living organism would try to do this. It completely ignores the evidence provided by the ward on Bloodraven's cave. When Bran and co arrive with Coldhands near the cave, Coldhands points to an open entrance beneath the grove of weirwoods. Bran sees ravens flying in and out of the cave. Coldhands claims the entrance is "warded". When asked whether Coldhands is coming too, he reiterates that the entrance is warded. Bran and co immediately understand the implication: it's the same magic as with the Black Gate: a wight cannot pass, not even an allied wight such as Coldhands. The huge difference and observable fact that we should take away from this scene is that a "ward" is a completely invisible barrier that only wights and Others cannot pass, but any living creature (bird, mammal and human) can cross it at heart's desire. Since the wights that attack Bran and co have been laying there for a very long time in front of the cave, we can also infer that the invisible ward has been there for at least as long. It wasn't created just the day before Bran's arrival. In other words, there was never any need for a physical ice wall, nor was it planned or built by the cotf or Brandon. Further potential evidence to check whether weirwoods offer natural santuary or not the wildlings and Wun Wun who had gathered at the weirwood grove north of the Wall: we are not certain though that this grove is warded. We only have the wildlings seeking it out and staying there in the hope or belief that it can bring them sanctuary. People died of starvation and cold, but were not attacked. Varamyr dies in front of a weirwood imprisoned in ice and Thistle gets wighted at the same spot: this suggests that either a weirwood by itself does not make a ward, or that more than one weirwood is required (a line or grove). The same ward at the entrance of Bloodraven's cave actually shows us how a wall of ice came into existence. In Bran's third chapter we learn how the environment outside of the cave's entrance begins to change. As the months pass, more and more wights gather outside the cave's entrance: including wighted ravens, the infamous bear that attacked on the Fist of the First Men, and more wighted corpses of NW men, women and even human children. They bring the cold with them and thus are "cold servants". And the more there are, the colder it gets, and in the course of the months passing, snow starts to build up at the cave's entrance, basically on the other side of the invisible ward. Eventually it rises so high that it blocks the entrance physically from the outside with a wall of snow. Summer has to dig a tunnel in the snow "wall" in order to still go outside and live on the marrow of the wights he kills. We can thus conclude that the secondary snow wall at the entrance of Bloodraven's cave came into existence over time, as a consequence of an increasing number of servants of the Others gathering on the other side of the invisible ward, making it colder and colder and thus bringing snow. During the creation of the snow wall over months on the other side of the warded entrance we do not see any of the following: anyone being bound to the weirwoods and being struck with dragonglass the weirwood grove becoming an ice armored soldier Bloodraven or cotf help or actions in making this secondary snow wall As an extra note I will point out that most of the quotes used about sentinels and tree soldiers completely ignore the fact that none of these are iced or ice soldiers or snow man: Will's sentinel is still a green tree, the men who attack Asha and she compares to legendary tree soldiers: men camouflaged in shrubbery and branches with leaves... no ice. In other words: yes the cotf have greenseers and use trees as eyes and warriors using foliage for camouflage to fight and war. Not one of them is a snowman or an ice man. And thus they are quotes that do not prove frozen weirwood soldiers whatsoever. Context! Context! Context! CONCLUSION: the Wall are two walls: an invisible ward created by Brandon and the cotf using a treeline of weirwoods and likely some extra magic, which allowed any living creature to north and south of the perimeter that we now know to be the Wall. There was no intention and no need for a physical barrier, because the invisible ward suffices to keep Others and wights north of it. They cannot pass. a separate secondary physical ice wall grew over time and is entirely of the Others' magical making as a counter strategy to keep people and animals from coming north. They used their own cold winds and wights of the people that came north to bring the cold and help raise it. Since this ice wall seemed to grow slowly over centuries, while the primary invisible ward continued to function, and people forget, they did not realize that the ice wall was not of the cotf's and brandon's making and came to believe that must have been what was physically built and that was what needed to keep the Others out. This of course made them wonder how in the hell they managed to build a physical wall that quickly across the whole continent and so high, and so they tried to retroactively explain it by having giants help build the Wall They also started to help build the Ice Wall higher and higher, believing this was what they were supposed to do. They could not fathom the Wall was actually an invisible barrier that Others could not cross. And after even a longer time they even forgot the Others alltogether, and came to believe the ice wall was built by Brandon and giants (and maybe the cotf) against the Free Folk north of the Wall, to prevent them from coming south

Done! And agreed on Wizz-the-Smith's essay on the Hollow Hills here on Westeros.org. I had read it here years ago, and then came back to it for the Brandon and Winterfell etymology. So, I put it in a recommended reading list specifically in the introduction on my Brandon essays for the Blood Seal thesis months ago. For those who haven't read it yet:

Agreed.

I deleted the app, the day it became an X (account itself is locked now). That's what an X stands for imo: close or delete. With the one I refuse to name paying out neo nazi trolls, I'm completely done with X. Anyhow, at Mastodon we have had a few interesting exchanges. Durran Durrandon even started his own instance.

Agree that's Aegon V and not I. Might be because of Daynes. And Aemon speaks of only one dream he has himself, whereas his brother Daeron seemed to be a prolific dreamer, including dreaming about Dunk and the death of Prince Baelor during the trial of the seven at the Ashford Tourney. In any case, it's not just about Aegon V, but 2 out of 3 at the very least in one generation who were dreamers. If this is a Targ percentage per generation, we might be looking at Aegon I and one of his sisters being dreamers. Agreed that there's no such mention of dreams in relation to Aegon I in Fire and Blood. There are a few things that can be regarded as set-ups to introduce a dream later on the painted table. It does not outright prove dreams, just that Aegon had prepared himself for an opportunity and conquer plans well before Argilac involved him in political turmoil in Westeros. And Aegon having a stroke just as he is showing that table to his grandchildren. It's as if talking about the table and the conquest triggered something in Aegon's brain to just blow. the colors of the three dragons of the conquering trio: black-red for Balerion, green Vhagar and silver Meraxes. These colors almost completely match with Drogon, Rhaegal and Viserion (who's more cream with gold). But if Viserion becomes an ice dragon, he'd turn a frosty silver. Given the introduction of dreamers dreaming of either physical dragons or themselves as dragons, including the description of maester Aemon's dream, it plants the seed for me for a dream of Dany's three dragons. Following that it becomes imo suspect that Visenya keeps two children as hostages at Dragonstone, which implicitly means she keeps them out of the clutches of Maegor. During Maegor's rule we have him on Balerion, and Visenya backs his rule on Vhagar. The children that Visenya keeps as "wards" are Jaehaerys with bronze Vermithor and Alysanne with silverwing. And then later in life, Alysanne particularly wants to visit the Wall and fly across the Wall with Silverwing and is disturbed when Silverwing does not. So, in case there was a dream about a black-red, green and silver dragon (ice dragoned viserion) in the snow, then Alysanne might have believed that Silverwing was the third dragon after Meraxes had died, but she would only have known that from Visenya imo. So, Silverwing not flying across would indeed greatly disturb Alysanne a lot. But it requires a lot of speculation on my part, admittedly.

Agree that prophetic dreams were not necessarily about the Others. George does ramp up the number of dragon dreams at least for one generation in aFfC: he admits that all his brothers had dragon dreams and all died for it Aerion Brightflame drank a cup of wildfire because of them Daeron drank as medicine against them, hence Daeron the Drunked. Aemon used to be his brother's maester. Allegedly he died of the pox from a whore, but this suggest perhaps something else. Aegon V is confirmed to have been a dragon dreamer by Aemon here. He died at Summerhal in a fire after he attempted to hatch dragon eggs with wildfire. And Aemon has them. He gives us a glimpse of that dream: red comet, shadows of dragons on the snow, hearing their wings and feeling their breath. So, in one generation we have 4/4 sons who had dragon dreams. We don't know about his two sisters yet. Might have skipped generations, sure. But Aemon's confession suggests the possibility that it was far more prevalent than most Targs let on: at least 4/6 of siblings confirmed, that's 2/3.

I did not imply that Rh'llorism was the official religion at Old Valyria or was held in high regard by the dragonlords. Indeed, as it was a religion that mostly seemed to appeal to slaves, and most of their priests in the Free Cities are bought slaves forced into it, I certainly agree that dragonlords of Old Valyria and their surviving descendants on Dragonstone would twist their nose at them. I also agree that the myths and legends, and certainly not the events that led to the myths and legends were invented by Rh'llorists. I never implied or claimed it. It's quite clear that the Rh'llorists appropriated it to claim that God's Helper (the meaning of Azariah, the closest etymological comparison we have for Azor Ahai) was their god's helper. I certainly don't agree with them. They do however seem to have a claim on the epiteth or name "Azor Ahai". The figure and the prophecy stems from Asshai, but Asshai does not equal Red Priests. Rh'llorists learned about the prophecy and then apparently named him Azor Ahai. Anyhow, I made no such claims nor implied it as Lord Varys argues about the Red Priests, so it's seriously beside the point. It's not about fanboying the Red Religion. I consider them seriously misguided and wrong, and I distrust anything and anyone "red". But that doesn't keep me from trying to think of what they believe, what they are trying to do, and how they would attempt to prepare themselves for the battle with the Great Other. They are fanatics after all, except for Thoros. I agree that we can think of reasons for not caring about Westeros, certainly not prior to the Doom. I disagree though that they would not care about the Targs at Westeros, after the Doom. Certainly "end of time" religious fanatics would see that as one of the first signs of the end-times coming. But there were some dragonlord survivors initially in Essos who were not at Old Valyria. Alas that one flew to his own death when he sought what was left of Old Valyria. After this, the sole remaining dragonlords are the Targs at Dragonstone. Ok, so the argument is that since "bringing dragons back" is part of the prophecy, they wouldn't care about Targs who still have dragons. They're waiting for the time those dragons are gone too. But "waking dragons from stone" is just vague. As so often happens with prophecies, any end-of-time fanatic will interprete prophetic words to argue that those end-of-times are now, rather than be critical of their interpretation. They'll make it fit whenever they feel it's warranted. How many doomsayers have we had the past 2000 years who claimed the apocalypse of the bible is now? How many historical characters have been cast as the number of the beast during their lifetime? How many disasters have been claimed to fit the apocalypse? How many cult leaders? How many cults have committed mass suicide the past 20th century alone? George has written novels about apocalypse preachers and believers before (Armageddon Rag). He knows how those minds work and how they make prophecy fit as they please. So, I don't think "the Targs still had dragons" suffices as an argument for George's world building when it comes to fanatics such as the red priests. He already showcased similar fanatics with several preachers of the Faith during the Dance and in aCoK when Tyrion wanders around KL to hear what the people have to say, during the Wot5K. But we can validly argue that certainly the Targs wouldn't tolerate a red priest near them as long as they had dragons. But I expect the red priests to keep tabs on the Targs after the Doom. The most interesting time period, before Thoros, though would be when the Targs do not have dragons anymore and are starting to look for ways to get dragons again. For a while the Blackfyres might sidetrack the red priests, for those are Targs without dragons in Essos during their exile. Not that the Blackfyres would have been interested in them, but the red priests would mostly be interested in the Blackfyres in Essos for a while over the Targs in Essos. But well by the time of Maelys the Monstrous that's over and done with mostly. He makes the pact of the Ninepenny Kings in 258 AC. The Summerhal tragedy with Aegon V trying hatch dragon eggs is in 259 AC, and he scoured as far as Asshai for info on how to hatch them in the preceding years. I would expect Red Priests to notice that. A desperate king might have ears for red priests even. Hmmmm.

I've just published the essay on my blog containing the Blackfish parallel with the Black Gate. It also includes Beric's speech being a mummery about the birth of the Night's Watch (or Knight's Watch?) and emphasizing the description of the roots in the hollow hill there. It's part of my Blood Seal thesis. Brandon the Builder (Part 1) - What's in a name?

I think like Bloodraven's cave the snow wall formed because of the cold servants increasing in the area shows the ice Wall is the Others' response against a green magical ward. A counter movement. With Bloodraven's cave: to keep the occupants in the cave. With the Night's Watch: to keep humans south, instead of crossing freely north of the weirwood treeline with more and more settlers (as the Free Folk did). The Free Folk and Joramun's response to want to bring the Wall down is evidence imo of there not being any physical wall for people, direwolves, cotf, giants for a few centuries, and never having been part of Brandon's and cotf plan. But it formed that far north partially naturally and with the aid of the Others, and then it existed and men forget and start to think the ice Wall was Brandon's creation, and start to maintain it and defend it against the Free Folk. Also, I completely disagree with the video's take on the creation of the Others as the children's ice soldiers. Maybe the Wall's weeping, because the weirwoods are trying to melt the Wall? After all, the Black Gate weeps at the heart of it, instead of taking the water up to freeze it.

I get why George brings a fire figure together with a green figure symbolically: to make a wildfire last hero character (greenseeing + kissed by fire), or a green dragon (a greenseeing dragon). I don't have an issue with Thoros' back story either, or how he is written. It just leads to a world building issue with regards to what the red priests have been doing the past centuries after the Doom, and Targs rising to power in Westeros in the meantime, especially if he now has red priests near Volantis declaring a Targ to be AA.

I'm not against the idea that Aegon was a dreamer and saw a vision that inspired him to believe he needed to do something. But I disagree it frames him in a more noble light. On the contrary. To me it makes Aegon the Conquerer who instead of acting enlightened or smart or helpful, acted out of self-grandizing pumped up ego white savior megalomania. He's like someone who claims to be on a spiritual path of enlightenment and into yoga, but then claims they were a high priestess in Egypt in a former life (never some poor smuck with leprosy who dies begging for alms) and post pics of themselves on their instagram influence account while contorting themselves into a pretzel. Spiritual narcissism. Aegon's conquest as a response to once having had a dream about the Others crossing the wall is the self-grandizing, ego response, not a noble one at all. He makes it all about himself. The whole war with Dorne shows how much he strays from this dream inspiration. They're the pretzel pics for likes on instagram. It doesn't make Aegon's Conquest nobler or better: it actually makes it look worse. And I'm pretty certain that if George would reveal Aegon being a dragon dreamer who had such a warning, he would make a point of it to remind us that sacrificing other innocent people's lives because you believe you're the savior is the wrong route. Oh, he already made such a point at least once with Stannis considering to sacrifice Edric Storm.

The idea on how a weirwood tree can operate like a giant water pump is interesting. And I also like the idea of the slender "tree" being a "branch" of the weirwood tree beneath the Wall, rather than a new weirwood. I found a parallel between Brynden Blackfish Tully as guardian of the Bloody Gate to the Black Gate. Brynden is a variation of Brandon. The convo between Donnel Waynwood and Brynden Blackfish at the Bloody Gate to let them pass is a formal ceremony. We know this, because it must have been the Blackfish who sent one of his own men, Donnel, out of the Bloody Gate to go and rescue Catelyn from yet another attack by the Mountain Clans. He knows Cat and he knows who Donnel is, and yet, Donnel must make some declaration of who they are and ask for permission to be let through, as if the Blackfish is physically blind, before the Blackfish officially allows them to pass. We also learn here that the Blackfish wears an obsidian jewel (the black fish). And Cat's focus here on finally seeing her uncle again after all those years goes much into how time has weathered his face, but his spirit has never altered. He still has the same laughter. Bran describes the face of the Black Gate as what a face would look like if someone got to live for thousands of years. Instead of laughter, he feels a salty water (symbolical) tear when his head touches those lips of the gate. So, I'm really starting to wonder whether the Black Gate's face is the face of Brandon the Builder. Leaf tells Bran that most of Brynden Rivers' has gone into the tree already. And we know skinchangers can choose to have a second life. What if they choose to lead their second life in a particular weirwood tree, a tree that possibly could live forever. So, towards the end of his greenseer life, Brandon the Builder imo decided to go into the weirwood tree that is the Black Gate, to become the guardian of this gate indefintely for his second life. Hence that's his face. The slender branch then represents the young Bran, his descendant. A parallel image that certainly points to tree roots being green magic in a wall is the description of the hollow hill where Arya meets Beric. One of the thing she notices is the white snakelike roots coiling through the Wall. She describes all the people coming out to see what's going on and sheltering in this hollow hill from the war and enemies. There's a weirwood throne, and the resurrected Beric steps down from it. Beric makes a speech on the formation of the Brotherhood without Banners: they decided to stick together and form this new brotherhood, abandoning their "banners"/lieges/homes etc, all to "protect the realm". It's an echo of the formation of the Night's Watch, or in this case a Knight's Watch, because they're all "knights" who felt a sword on their shoulder. Oh and Beric wields a flaming sword inside the cave, after slashing his palm and cover his blade with his "last kiss by fire" blood. Beric and his Brotherhood who were born after the attack on the Mummer's Ford are a mummery reenactment of the formation of the Night's Watch, the last hero, aka Brandon, for Beric is actually Be-ric and ric means "king"... Brandon would be king later in life or at least father to kings. But then the proposal imo makes the mistake to think the realm needs a wall of ice to keep Others and army of the dead from crossing, when he simultaneously implies that it's the weirwood trees themselves that cause there to be a "magical ward". We see two other such magical wards in operation in the books: Storm's End: Mel needs to be smuggled past the walls underground to birth her shadow assassin there, so that it's born within the perimeter and can go up into a murder hole to assassinate Cornay Penrose. As far as we know, no weirwood trees are built in those walls. We only know of a heart tree in the godswood and Mel has Stannis burn it after the surrendering of Storm's End. It's possible that heart tree's roots got as far as Storm's End walls and provided the ward, in theory. After the burning of the heart tree at Storm's End, this would mean "no more ward". Bloodraven's cave: the entrance of the cave beneath the weirwood grove is warded. It's open space. There's no wall whatsoever. The living can come and go as they please. Ravens fly in and out. Summer and his wolf pack can come and go. Bran and co can go in and out if they want to. But the wights cannot. Not Coldhands, not the wighted bear, nor the dead beneath the snow that tried to attack Bran when they arrived at the cave system, not the dead wighted ravens either. The Others apparently not, for if they could they would have tried already. The latter means that no physical wall was ever needed and perhaps not even planned. It was just a treeline of weirwoods, and likely one main weirwood with the others as treebranches on the extended roots beneath the ground. And a ward, that may stem from the weirwoods or another magical act. We also learn that towards the end of Bran's chapter, snow has been gathering near that entrance, forming a snow wall at the entrance. But this was caused by the cold winds (and the Others if you will). Summer digs holes into the snow to get to the other side. This then suggests that the ice wall is actually a counter move by the Others to hamper the free going and fro by people and animals, rather than something the children and Brandon aimed to create.

On the first, I agree the Targs would not have much appetite for conversion to another religion after the troubles with the Faith Militant. But I'm not really arguing here "it's illogical that the Targs weren't into Rh'llorism", just that I would expect bigger efforts from the red priests in all that time other than Thoros of Myr. On the second, thank you, I stand corrected. So, they established some foothold both in Dorne and Oldtown. We have that at least. Now I'm curious how long they have been there already, and your first point makes me hope that George gets a chance to rectify this by perhaps involving an attempt prior to Thoros of Myr in the reigns after the Dance. This preferably would be a red priest sent to court that simultaneously establishes why Aerys-mad-for-fire chose pyromancers over Thoros. Maybe in relation to the tragedy of Summerhal? Some red priest who advized Aegon V on how to hatch dragon eggs? Or a red priest talking prophecy once Aenys I's interest is piqued into old scrolls?

I tried to search for the thread that tried to gather some mistakes George made with his gardening style in the world building. But couldn't find it. This one for some reason really bugs me. So the AA prophecy is around for 5000 years, and basically spreads across Essos in that time span: every Free City and Braavos has some house where they worship Rh'llor and have red priests. Evidently the age of the prophecy and the rise of Old Valyria overlap for most of that time, so it makes perfect sense for the Rh'llorists to focus on spreading the word in Essos. And we can reasonably expect the Red Priests the prophecied AA reborn would be some Essosi, the continent where dragonlords rule, 14 flames, and hypermining and magical Valyrian Steel swords. But then the Doom happens some 400 years ago. Roughly a 100 years later the sole surviving dragonlord family that settled on Dragonstone conquers a whole different continent - Westeros. And this last dragonriding family rules Westeros for roughly 280 years, albeit their last dragon dying 150 years into that. But somehow the Rh'llorists didn't think of sending a red priest (Thoros of Myr) to the court of Westeros in the hope to convert a king of the IT, until the Mad King, because he's fond of fires. For some weird reason, Aerys isn't into the Red Priest who can see stuff in flames, nor does he join Rhaegar's prophecy minded club, but joins Robert's court. Thoros not joining Rhaegar might be explained if Thoros was only sent to KL after the Red Priests learned of him burning Rickard Stark and thus the Rebellion was already on its way, and Rhaegar was at ToJ. But overall I find it plain weird that the red priests never ever tried to set up some shop in Westeros or tried to convert Targaryens before the Mad King. It's not as if the Targs were unknown in Essos. Many even journeyed in Essos or lived there as exiles: Maegor, Aegon IV, Brightflame serving with the Second Sons and staying in Lys, Saera Targaryen starting a pillow house in Volantis, Aegon V sending people to Asshai and Essos in search of info to hatch a dragon, and years before the end the Mad King sending Steffon in search of a bride for Rhaegar, the Blackfyres in Tyrosh, ... I know that the red priests acquire their priests from buying slaves, and slavery is a no-no in Westeros, but surely they could have started a satellite priestly house in Oldtown and declare them "free" but bound by vows. If the Citadel, the NW, the septons and septas can find a workaround around slaves through vows, then so can the red priests. After all, they have a church in fricking Braavos, where slavery is as big a no-no, if not bigger. And I guess that the conversion of the Mad King may mostly have been some excuse Thoros' superiors gave, just to be rid of him. But I just have a hard time accepting that the Rh'llorists never ever tried to convert Targs before the Mad King, never ever tried to set up at least one of their churches somewhere in Westeros just to have an eye on that continent especially once the Targs rule there, or even pay any interest into exiled Targs in Essos until Dany weds Drogo. And even if the Faith dominates in Oldtown, we do have a Curch of Starry Wisdom there. So that religion at least made an effort. The alchemists (pyromancers who make wildfire) used to have a bigger dominance and credibility in Westeros until but a few centuries ago, and apparently rivaled maesters for a long while. Surely, that guild could have been an ally in having some satellite mission in Westeros. Even if they believe AA's work will mainly be done in Essos, by the time of the Targ rule in Westeros, a type of commercial globalization is on the rise. Westerosi sail all the way to Asshai, and loads of merchants from Essosi Free Cities sail from Asshai to Oldtown. The Iron Bank is a big lender of the IT. And in all that time no red priests ever thought - maybe AA will be born in Westeros and come to Essos? I can only conclude this is a real world building flaw that stems from George's gardening writing. It's all happening now, so he drops Thoros in the first book and gives him a bigger role with Beric in aSoS, with a background story. And he has a FM talking about the Red God to Arya on her way to HH. He adds red priests being present at Dany's wedding in Pentos, but they didn't care before this and don't much care after, not until Slaver's Bay. Meanwhile Mel shows up out of the blue on Dragonstone, but at least she's portrayed as being guided by her own personal visions and not on the orders of her church. Then he starts to write backstory for the Targs and their rule for his world building, starts to write backstory for Essos, the varioius AA hero legends Beyond the Bones, Asshai, Old Valyria and the red priests. They're all fine and great by themselves, but the moment you put it together, you end up with a massive contradiction.

They would have. That said, there weren't really "petty kings" anymore. Petty kingdoms was something that was mostly over with before the Andals arrived. Most are solid kingdoms by the time the Targs arrive, with incursions and retaliations between either the Stormlands or the Reach versus Dorne, the Stormlands or the Ironborn vying for the Riverlands, Ironborn raiding the Reach, Westerlands or the North. The wars over the Sisters between the Vale and the North seemed to be over and done, but the North had to content with the occasional King Beyond the Wall. Targs conquering Westeros did not really settle wars with Dorne, or the North's issues with Kings Beyond the Wall. They did mostly put the Ironborn on a short leash and did away with Stormland ambitions for the Riverlands. So, the Riverlands and those who were pestered by Ironborn regularly seemingly benefited the most of it. I say seemingly. A big issue is that instead of the wars between kingdoms over some territory, you get other wars over the IT, with Maegor the Cruel, the Dance, Dornish wars, Blackfyres and Robert's Rebellion, where eventually a lot of the battles and suffering from armies and dragonfire continue in the same region. The Riverlands saw plenty of battles when Maegor took the throne, the Dance, Blackfyres and RR, the Crownlans and the northern section of the Reach were regular battlegrounds in those too. And instead of having fighting between two regions/kingdoms over a border issue, armies of all of Westeros were usually involved in it as well. I even suspect these battles since the Targs were far more deadly then most of the battles between rivaling kingdoms were. This may actually be one of the big reasons why the numbers of the Night's Watch plummeted in such a short time. Less regular fighting, but also far more deadly and take no prisoners. Whereas before there were more incursions, but less deadlier and more ransoming and taking prisoners who got to choose "the Wall".

I've reread the whole thread again, and I also wanted to add another mirror parallel to Starks: Griff (JonCon) raising Aegon as his own son. JonCon mirrors Ned's role to Jon in that regard, and he not so incidentally wears a "red wolf" cloak. Meanwhile Aegon is supposedly a son of Rhaegar, as most expect Jon to be. This adds to the idea that Lemore should have some parallel role as well. Except, Cat's attitude towards Jon was never like Lemore's to Aegon. Does she have parallels with Lyanna? Lemore is an absent mother (to the child she birthed)? She was "promised" (to her faith) and wasn't supposed to get preggers in the eyes of her family?