[Spoilers] The Princess and the Queen, complete spoilers discussion

[By the Old Gods Not theNew]

Bloodraven and Bran both share something that Daemon doesnt though, First Men blood [1]. But what do greenseers have to do with green men? No one really knows much about the green men, only that the order came about after the truce between the Children and the First Men. In stories theyre described to have antlers and leaves for hair and like said earlier, they may be some kind of hybrid race. Also, Ive never seen it stated that green men are greenseers. [2] Acording to the Children youre born a greenseer. [3] How could Daemon just become either of these?[4] Greenseers are also wargs, if Daemon had such an ability, why fight with Aemond at all? Why not just warg his dragon?[5] I agree that its likely that Daemon ended up on the Isle of Faces and may have learned what he could from the green men.[6]

1. True, Daemon lacks blood of the First Men. That could very well mean he has no chance of having been born a greenseer. However there are many Targ's who have prophetic dragon dreams, and there's the daughter who foretold the doom of valyria. So it seems as though the Targs have visions that are a kin to green dreams if not exactly the same. We don't know if Daemon had prophetic visions, or not, there is however a distinct possibility he did. And if so it would seem reasonable that such talents might avail themselves when in the company of greenseers/men on the isle of faces.

2. It's true that we know very little about the Green Men, however they are clearly associated w/ the Greenseers and the Old Gods. I don't think they're a hybrid race. They were probably a religious order established to help enforce the Pact between the CotF and the First Men. This is what Maester Luwin says of the order of the Green Men:

"But some twelve thousand years ago, the First Men appeared from the east, crossing the Broken Arm of Dorne before it was broken. They came with bronze swords and great leathern shields, riding horses. No horse had ever been seen on this side of the narrow sea. No doubt the children were as frightened by the horses as the First Men were by the faces in the trees. As the First Men carved out holdfasts and farms, they cut down the faces and gave them to the fire. Horrorstruck, the children went to war. The old songs say that the greenseers used dark magics to make the seas rise and sweep away the land, shattering the Arm, but it was too late to close the door. The wars went on until the earth ran red with blood of men and children both, but more children than men, for men were bigger and stronger, and wood and stone and obsidian make a poor match for bronze. Finally the wise of both races prevailed, and the chiefs and heroes of the First Men met the greenseers and wood dancers amidst the weirwood groves of a small island in the great lake called Gods Eye.

"There they forged the Pact. The First Men were given the coastlands, the high plains and bright meadows, the mountains and bogs, but the deep woods were to remain forever the children's, and no more weirwoods were to be put to the axe anywhere in the realm. So the gods might bear witness to the signing, every tree on the island was given a face, and afterward, the sacred order of green men was formed to keep watch over the Isle of Faces.

In time, the First Men even put aside the gods they had brought with them, and took up the worship of the secret gods of the wood. The signing of the Pact ended the Dawn Age, and began the Age of Heroes."

I think the Order of the Green Men was comprised of First Men who, after signing the Pact, vowed to take up and defend the Old Gods as their own. A Faith Militant of the Old Gods, if you will.

Old Nan's story describes the green men as follows:

In Old Nan’s stories, the guardians had dark green skin and leaves instead of hair. Sometimes they had antlers too,

This sounds like a fanciful rendition of Bran's description of Bloodraven:

His body was so skeletal and his clothes so rotted that at first Bran took him for another corpse, a dead man propped up so long that the roots had grown over him, under him, and through him. What skin the corpse lord showed was white, save for a bloody blotch that crept up his neck onto his cheek. His white hair was fine and thin as root hair and long enough to brush against the earthen floor. Roots coiled around his legs like wooden serpents. One burrowed through his breeches into the desiccated flesh of his thigh, to emerge again from his shoulder. A spray of dark red leaves sprouted from his skull, and grey mushrooms spotted his brow. A little skin remained, stretched across his face, tight and hard as white leather, but even that was fraying, and here and there the brown and yellow bone beneath was poking through.

Bloodraven is covered in roots (hence the green/tree metaphor in Old Nan's tail), he has leaves growing out of his head (hence the leaves for hair) and he has mushrooms growing out of his brow (hence the antlers). I think Old Nan's describing what we know as greenseers (Bloodraven, who the CotF call the last greenseer, and the CotF w/ green or red eyes whom Bloodraven calls greenseers and who Bran sees enthroned elsewhere in the cave) even though she refers to them as green men.

3. It seems like blood, chance, and frailty are all part of being a greenseer. When Bran eats the weirwood paste he asks Bloodraven if the paste will make him a greenseer he responds, "Your blood makes you a greenseer." And Bloodraven tells Bran that 1 in 1000 are born a skinchanger and 1 in 1000 skinchangers is born a greenseer. Bloodraven also tells Bran of certain CotF who are marked by the gods w/ green or red eyes and who "are nor robust," and who's "quick years upon the earth are few" who are also greenseers. And we know both Bloodraven and Bran were/are frail.

That said while both are greenseers it wasn't until they reached the cave that they presumably awoke the gifts and became wed to the trees. So, in this sense, one does become a greenseer even if one is born w/ the potential it's no certainty they will ever be realized.

4. Either Daemon was born a greenseer and didn't know it (not likely for a number of reasons: blood, physique, etc.) Or his debilitating crash and ensuing revival on the isle of faces gave him a second life as a greenseer (even more unlikely but hey there's the possibility that Patch Face is a prophet so...you know...just sayin'). Otherwise he most likely converted to the old gods and joined the Order of the Green Men after surviving his plunge into the Gods Eye.

5. Wargs need training to develop their abilities. Bran is the only Stark child who has been taught how to utilize his abilities. Jon and Arya have wolf dreams but they don't have the skills to warg any creature they come across. Bran couldn't warg an eagle when tried as they traveled north. He also tries to warg 2 ravens before settling on the third and that's after having been mentored by both Jojen and Bloodraven. Even if Daemon was a warg, which he probably wasn't, I would think his warging skills would need to be developed in order to warg a dragon.

6. I agree. I think he probably lived out a very long life (like Aemon 102, and Bloodraven 125) on the Isle and learned much of the Old Gods and likely passed on some significant insight to his great-grand son who kicked it thereabouts back in the day (in 175al when Bloodraven was born Daemon would be 94 years old, if Daemon lived to the same age as Aemon (102) Bloodraven would have been 8 years old, or the same age as Bran when Bloodraven started contacting him).

Well said.

If we accept the possibility that Daemon somehow survived and probably made it to the Isle of Faces, then the parallels between Daemon and the Old Gods don't have to be purely coincidental.

Maybe their purpose in the story is to suggest that Daemon's destiny after the duel with Aemond was connected to the Old Gods.

I don't think it's too crazy to speculate that Daemon had interest in the Old Gods or maybe dabbled in some kind of magic. I think we shouldn't trust Gyldayn, he's either ignorant of this matter or deliberately downplaying the role of magic in general. There are some hints, like Aemond's lover Alys Rivers and her prophetic visions or Rhaenyra consulting with mysterious Lady Mysaria, who's probably some kind of seer too. Daemon strikes me personally as Bloodraven's ancestor, both of blood and of spirit, and we know Bloodraven possesses the gifts of the Old Gods and was associated with sorcery years after the dragons and the magic were supposedly gone from the world.

Thanks, and I concur.

[Lost Melnibonean]

Aemond has the blood of the first men.

[By the Old Gods Not theNew]

On Daemon's possible adoption/connection to the Old Gods, I'm thinking a guy who has respect for such wouldn't cut up a Heart Tree. This is the rough equivalent of converting to the Seven and proceeding to cut marks into a statue of the Stranger.

Also on the subject of that Heart Tree, perhaps the wounds bleed afresh every spring because of something to do with the properties of Valyrian Steel("dragonsteel"?). These slashes were made by Dark Sister after all.

The simpler answer is probably that the cuts are extremely deep because Valyrian steel is so sharp, not because weirwoods are extra sensitive to the stuff. But it does seem a bit strange that those wounds didn't heal.

I don't think this analogy is very apt. Cutting or carving a weirwood isn't necessarily sacrilegious. Cutting them down and feeding them to the fires, is. However, there are numerous examples in the text of people who keep the old gods who cut or carve weirwoods:

The Children of the Forest (keepers of the old gods) used weirwood bows and carved into weirwood trees:

Only the children of the forest dwelt in the lands we now call the Seven Kingdoms.

"They were a people dark and beautiful, small of stature, no taller than children even when grown to manhood. They lived in the depths of the wood, in caves and crannogs and secret tree towns. Slight as they were, the children were quick and graceful. Male and female hunted together, with weirwood bows and flying snares. Their gods were the gods of the forest, stream, and stone, the old gods whose names are secret. Their wise men were called greenseers, and carved strange faces in the weirwoods to keep watch on the woods

When the CotF and the First Men signed their Pact agreeing no more destruction of weirwoods they carved faces into the trees:

So the gods might bear witness to the signing, every tree on the island was given a face,

When Bloodraven (keeper of the old gods) killed Daemon Blackfyre weirwood arrows fell like rain:

“The hammer and the anvil?” The old man’s mustache gave a twitch. “The singers leave out much and more. Daemon was the Warrior himself that day. No man could stand before him. He broke Lord Arryn’s van to pieces and slew the Knight of Ninestars and Wild Wyl Waynwood before coming up against Ser Gwayne Corbray of the Kingsguard. For near an hour they danced together on their horses, wheeling and circling and slashing as men died all around them. It’s said that whenever Blackfyre and Lady Forlorn clashed, you could hear the sound for a league around. It was half a song and half a scream, they say. But when at last the Lady faltered, Blackfyre clove through Ser Gwayne’s helm and left him blind and bleeding. Daemon dismounted to see that his fallen foe was not trampled, and commanded Redtusk to carry him back to the maesters in the rear. And there was his mortal error, for the Raven’s Teeth had gained the top of Weeping Ridge, and Bloodraven saw his half brother’s royal standard three hundred yards away, and Daemon and his sons beneath it. He slew Aegon first, the elder of the twins, for he knew that Daemon would never leave the boy whilst warmth lingered in his body, though white shafts fell like rain. Nor did he, though seven arrows pierced him, driven as much by sorcery as by Bloodraven’s bow. Young Aemon took up Blackfyre when the blade slipped from his dying father’s fingers, so Bloodraven slew him, too, the younger of the twins. Thus perished the black dragon and his sons.

When Bloodraven and the Raven's Teeth put down the 2nd Blackfyre Rebellion they had weirwood bows:

From Maidenpool had come Lord Mooton, from Raventree Lord Blackwood, from Duskendale Lord Darklyn. The royal demenses about King's Landing sent forth Hayfords, Rosbys, Stokeworths, Masseys, and the king's own sworn swords, led by three knights of the Kingsguard and stiffened by three hundred Raven's Teeth with tall white weirwood bows. Mad Danelle Lothston herself rode forth in strength from her haunted towers at Harrenhal, clad in black armor that fit her like an iron glove, her long red hair streaming.

Bran sees a youth in Winterfell (keepers of the old gods) slice 3 branches of the heart tree for arrows:

A dark-eyed youth, pale and fierce, sliced three branches off the weirwood and shaped them into arrows.

Jon gains the fealty of Morna the warrior witch who wears a weirwood mask:

The warrior witch Morna removed her weirwood mask just long enough to kiss his gloved hand and swear to be his man or his woman, whichever he preferred.

To become a greenseer Bran eats weirwood seed paste out of a weirwood bowl:

“The trees will teach him,” said Leaf. She beckoned, and another of the singers padded forward, the white-haired one that Meera had named Snowy locks. She had a weirwood bowl in her hands, carved with a dozen faces, like the ones the heart trees wore. Inside was a white paste, thick and heavy, with dark red veins running through it. “You must eat of this,” said Leaf. She handed Bran a wooden spoon.The boy looked at the bowl uncertainly.

“What is it?”

“A paste of weirwood seeds.”

From these examples it's clear that the CotF, Bloodraven, Brandon Snow or some other youth in winterfell's godswood of old, and Morna the warrior witch all use weirwood for practical application (bows, arrows, bowls, masks, enlightening pastes, etc.) while at the same time worshiping weirwoods as their gods and carving likenesses into them (which is also has it's practical application, seeing into the weirweb).

The 13 slashes on the weirwood marking the passage of time don't strike me as sacrilegious or disrespectful. Daemon's time in harrenhal seems like it's a significant period of introspection centered around the godswood. And why would Daemon have any reason to treat the old gods disrespectfully? The Blackwoods as well as the North had rallied behind the Blacks.

I'm not sure the mechanics for why the wounds bleed fresh, I think it serves a literary function as a symbolic motif that can referenced throughout the series...Like in ADwD when Hoster Blackwoods reference to the Dance and old wounds never healing. And the old wounds are said to bleed afresh each spring, and there was a certain year of the false spring in which Harrenhal figures quite prominently...I wonder if the wounds were open during the tournament at harrenhal?

[Lion of the West]

Yes, I’ve seen your avatar and understand your plight. Buck up!!! You’ll always have Castamere. And Jaime did smash the very inept Edmure Tully under the walls of Riverrun. Oh, and lets not forget Tywin and Mace Tyrell taking Stannis in the rear at King’s Lading. And I must mention Tywin’s victory over Roose Bolton. Who cares if it was a fake attack by the Northmen and that Roose Bolton was purposely sabotaging rival houses.

So, there. You have some.....wins to celebrate.

I am bucking up! And thank the Seven for Jaime, Tywin, Tyrion and Kevan - the only Lannisters we've heard about so far who can manage to accomplish anything at all.

LOLOL thats so true i never understood that that guy must have been a poor ass swordsman. Oh well atleast they have more victories in the current story line man. Hell at least they can say they survived the field of fire too.

Yeah, some kind of freaking record. Guess it wasn't much of loss to see Brightroar go away. And like I posted above, thank the Seven for Jaime, Tyrion, Tywin and Kevan who can actually accomplish anything at all.

[History of Westeros]

I don't think this analogy is very apt. Cutting or carving a weirwood isn't necessarily sacrilegious. Cutting them down and feeding them to the fires, is. However, there are numerous examples in the text of people who keep the old gods who cut or carve weirwoods:

The Children of the Forest (keepers of the old gods) used weirwood bows and carved into weirwood trees:

When the CotF and the First Men signed their Pact agreeing no more destruction of weirwoods they carved faces into the trees:

When Bloodraven (keeper of the old gods) killed Daemon Blackfyre weirwood arrows fell like rain:

When Bloodraven and the Raven's Teeth put down the 2nd Blackfyre Rebellion they had weirwood bows:

Bran sees a youth in Winterfell (keepers of the old gods) slice 3 branches of the heart tree for arrows:

Jon gains the fealty of Morna the warrior witch who wears a weirwood mask:

To become a greenseer Bran eats weirwood seed paste out of a weirwood bowl:

From these examples it's clear that the CotF, Bloodraven, Brandon Snow or some other youth in winterfell's godswood of old, and Morna the warrior witch all use weirwood for practical application (bows, arrows, bowls, masks, enlightening pastes, etc.) while at the same time worshiping weirwoods as their gods and carving likenesses into them (which is also has it's practical application, seeing into the weirweb).

The 13 slashes on the weirwood marking the passage of time don't strike me as sacrilegious or disrespectful. Daemon's time in harrenhal seems like it's a significant period of introspection centered around the godswood. And why would Daemon have any reason to treat the old gods disrespectfully? The Blackwoods as well as the North had rallied behind the Blacks.

I'm not sure the mechanics for why the wounds bleed fresh, I think it serves a literary function as a symbolic motif that can referenced throughout the series...Like in ADwD when Hoster Blackwoods reference to the Dance and old wounds never healing. And the old wounds are said to bleed afresh each spring, and there was a certain year of the false spring in which Harrenhal figures quite prominently...I wonder if the wounds were open during the tournament at harrenhal?

These are all well known examples but they don't really serve as a counter. Branches grow back. Some of those wooden items may have been carved from fallen branches or from stumps. We don't really know. Regardless, none of these things permanently scar the tree.

Carving a face is "activating the tree". That's a specific and meaningful event. Slashing the tree to mark the passage of time seems like graffiti, more or less.

Nor am I suggesting Daemon was intentionally being disrespectful. Remember that this point is in reference to the notion that Daemon discovered a prophecy or got involved with the Old Gods in some vague manner. I'm suggesting someone who is respectful to the Old Gods would not do this. In Daemon's case the tree slashes sound more like indifference.

[alguien]

I remember slicing the wood of a tropical blood tree in Costa Rica. It was eerie. Sap looked EXACTLY like blood. Definitely reminded me of the weirwoods.

[By the Old Gods Not theNew]

These are all well known examples but they don't really serve as a counter. Branches grow back. Some of those wooden items may have been carved from fallen branches or from stumps. We don't really know. Regardless, none of these things permanently scar the tree.

Carving a face is "activating the tree". That's a specific and meaningful event. Slashing the tree to mark the passage of time seems like graffiti, more or less.

Nor am I suggesting Daemon was intentionally being disrespectful. Remember that this point is in reference to the notion that Daemon discovered a prophecy or got involved with the Old Gods in some vague manner. I'm suggesting someone who is respectful to the Old Gods would not do this. In Daemon's case the tree slashes sound more like indifference.

Sure they do. We have ample evidence to indicate that cutting or carving into a weirwood in itself isn't a sacrilegious act carried out by those who lack respect for the old gods. On the contrary we see the keepers of the old gods regularly cut and carve into their weirwoods for practical and spiritual purposes. There is nothing to indicate that cutting a weirwood is a kin to defacing a statue of one of the Seven.

Branches don't just grow back, there is a permanent scar and an altered growth pattern when branches are cut off of trees. We know that the dark-eyed youth in the Winterfell's godswood sliced the branches off of the weirwood itself, from this it's safe to assume Bloodraven and the 300 ravens teeth, who used weirwood bows and arrows, weren't relying on salvaged materials to arm themselves in war and for terrifying the realm. Whether or not the rest came from salvaged material doesn't change the fact that we know the arrows at the very least came from the trees and cutting off branches does result in permanent scarring. So by both of these criteria we've seen keepers of the old gods engage in essentially the same behavior.

There are two readings Daemon's actions:

1. he wondered around Harrenhal for 2 weeks and each night he engaged in a little mindless vandalism (you, rum ham);

he was engaged in some heavy self-reflection centering around the godswood and the slashes are meant to draw our attention to this fact.

​I think the latter makes more sense give the context of the situation, the tone of the passage, and the fact that the marks themselves signify a specific and meaningful event that seems to have activated something in the tree. It doesn't make much sense given the gravity of the passage and it's reappearance in ADwD, and possibly elsewhere (ie the false spring), to read Deamon's actions as mindless indifference. Why would his mindless indifference have such thematic significance?

Thanks for the reminder, I think I'm keeping up. What I'm suggesting is that based on the text and your own criteria people who respect the old gods do engage similar behavior and therefore we have no reason to think of Daemon's act as a sign of indifference, vandalism, or disrespect toward the old gods.

[Valkyrist]

I was a little mixed on The Princess and the Queen. I’d probably give it a 3/5. I enjoyed reading it at the time, but I think that was more to do this wealth of backstory and history the story provides. And it certainly is a really awesome, and tragic, and epic story, but I found myself oddly detached, and even bored by large sections of it, and I think it’s because there aren’t really any characters to speak of. There are certainly hundreds of new names to memorise, new family trees and new titles, but we don’t really get anything beyond a few vague personality traits, and maybe a line of dialogue here or there. That was disappointing, because characters have always been head and shoulders my favourite aspect of Martin’s series, and one of the elements that really distinguishes him from other fantasy writers, who seem far more interested in creating worlds, than filling them with compelling characters to root for and against. Criston Cole, for example, was a lot more intriguing to me in that one line of dialogue we get about him in A Feast for Crows.

So I guess my gripe is that these battles, which are certainly very epic and at times really vividly described, were ultimately rendered kind of hollow, since I didn’t care who won, and thus there weren’t any stakes. For example, I was far more emotionally invested in Ser Duncan's fight in the mud at the end of The Sworn Sword, than the dragon battle over Harrehal. There are certainly characters I would have loved to have learned more about, such as Nettles and Adam Velaryon, but they only really get a few measly sentences a piece, whereas dozens of pages are dedicated to listing all of the troop movements and skirmishes in the Riverlands, which were my least favourite parts of the book, even if they were valuable from a historical perspective. To me, they just felt like someone was narrating an online Age of Empires match.

The best parts of the story was when the narrator zoomed in on a particular situation, such as the Blood and Cheese incident, or the dragon battle at Harrenhal, or the riots at King’s Landing. They were fantastically visceral, and you really felt a sense of danger and personal stakes for the people involved. So yeah, as a work of story-telling I was pretty mixed on the experience, but as a really detailed info dump on Westerosi history, I did enjoy it, and I think there’s definitely a lot of new content to talk bout.

The novella certainly whets my appitite for The World of Ice and Fire, and I imagine I’ll tear through that book just as quickly, but I’m not sure how I feel about this transition into overarching, objective accounts of Westerosi history. To be honest, I think the ASOIAF backstory is far more interesting revealed in drips and drabs, where the reader has to actively forage for information and piece together a cohesive historical narrative, rather than just have it pre-assembled and served up to them in one gigantic text block.

I also much prefer how the history is viewed from a more personal, localised perspective, that it is always subjective, and constantly being filtered through the lens of family loyalty, and political ambitions, and cultural and religious upbringing. That we begin with a character first, with all of their thoughts and fears and dreams, and then slowly build the world outwards from that perspective, and what is important is how the character responds to their environment, and how the world shapes them. And to me that’s more interesting to me that Tolkien’s overarching, historically objective viewpoint. Readers of ASOIAF really have to work for the truth of the story, and come together to argue over what really occured, and what it might mean. Having a maester simply lay out the history from beginning to end, robs it of that wonderful subjectivity and mysticism that surrounds something like Robert's Rebellion.

[RumHam]

These are all well known examples but they don't really serve as a counter. Branches grow back. Some of those wooden items may have been carved from fallen branches or from stumps. We don't really know. Regardless, none of these things permanently scar the tree.

Carving a face is "activating the tree". That's a specific and meaningful event. Slashing the tree to mark the passage of time seems like graffiti, more or less.

Nor am I suggesting Daemon was intentionally being disrespectful. Remember that this point is in reference to the notion that Daemon discovered a prophecy or got involved with the Old Gods in some vague manner. I'm suggesting someone who is respectful to the Old Gods would not do this. In Daemon's case the tree slashes sound more like indifference.

It's also worth noting that there's no evidence that any of these people's bows/masks/arrows were made from Heart Trees, which are the really sacred weirwoods that as I said before I don't think any devote follower of the old gods would cut (other than carving the face to make it a heart tree, obviously.) We have the vision of someone creating three arrows from the Winterfell heart tree, but he is alone and we don't have any idea who he is or how others would react to his actions.

There are two readings Daemon's actions:

1. he wondered around Harrenhal for 2 weeks and each night he engaged in a little mindless vandalism (you, rum ham);

he was engaged in some heavy self-reflection centering around the godswood and the slashes are meant to draw our attention to this fact.

It wasn't so much mindless vandalism as keeping track of the days.

I don't actually disagree that he might have engaged in some heavy self-reflection in (among other places) the Godswood. He may have even heard whispers and started to maybe wonder about those Northerner and their crazy tree gods. My argument was that I don't think he had a connection to the Old Gods prior to his "death" and did not choose Harrenhal because of it's proximity to the Green Men.

[By the Old Gods Not theNew]

It's also worth noting that there's no evidence that any of these people's bows/masks/arrows were made from Heart Trees, which are the really sacred weirwoods that as I said before I don't think any devote follower of the old gods would cut (other than carving the face to make it a heart tree, obviously.) We have the vision of someone creating three arrows from the Winterfell heart tree, but he is alone and we don't have any idea who he is or how others would react to his actions.

So there is evidence of someone in the Winterfell godswood of old making 3 arrows from branches cut off the heart tree. This someone is most likely Brandon Snow. There is a small possibility that the individual wasn't a Stark/Snow (keeper of the old gods) and could have been a ward like Theon. However that is a very small possibility when compared to the much more likely scenario: the youth is Brandon Snow or some other Stark/Snow. In terms of the simple probability there's a better case to be made for this someone being a keeper of the old gods, as opposed to a completely unknown outsider with no association thereof.

There is no evidence to indicate that heart trees are more sacred than other weirwoods. The CotF sought to protect all weirwoods when they made their pact w/ the First Men.

no more weirwoods were to be put to the axe anywhere in the realm.

So even if Bloodraven took pains to arm the Raven's teeth with only the finest sustainably harvested non-heart-tree-weirwood bows and arrows on the market (which there's no reason to believe he did), it was still harvested from the sacred trees protected under the terms of the Pact. Bloodraven (aka: the last greenseer), nevertheless, rocked his weirwood bow and made it rain w/ wierwood arrows all the same.

And the argument that it is sacrilegious to make permanent marks on heart trees relies on the obvious exception: the entire religion appears to be centered around carving permanent faces into heart trees and thus every heart tree is permanently defaced as part of the religion. Which apparently doesn't count.

So there's no evidence to indicate carving or cutting a weirwood is sacrilegious in the eyes of the faithful.

The counter argument is based on elaborating a bunch of possible exceptions that warrant ignoring the texts and presuming it's a "terrible sin"1 or sign of indifference/disrespect. This argument is seemingly based on the the readers sense of propriety vis-a-via heart trees and not what the text has to say about the matter. :dunno:

It wasn't so much mindless vandalism as keeping track of the days.

I don't actually disagree that he might have engaged in some heavy self-reflection in (among other places) the Godswood. He may have even heard whispers and started to maybe wonder about those Northerner and their crazy tree gods. My argument was that I don't think he had a connection to the Old Gods prior to his "death" and did not choose Harrenhal because of it's proximity to the Green Men.

I know your arg. You've argued Daemon didn't have any preexisting links to the Old Gods before his possible survival and recovery on the Isle of Faces. On this we differ, but only in degrees, insofar as i think much of what we see in tPatQ simply foreshadows future events on which we essentially concur. :cheers:

However, in relation Daemon's 13 slashes to the weirwood you've argued that it is a "terrible sin" or rather that we don't know that it's not a terrible sin. This is really just a form "begging the question" that's clearly informed by your own notions of propriety and not what we've seen in the text as i've tried to demonstrate above. Further you've made the contention Daemon did it because he was "bored or to mark the time" or "just to pass/mark the time." You say "tomato" I say "mindless vandalism," same thing really. :P

[Rhaenys_Targaryen]

The pattern of the Shepherd's speech is what made me think of Patchface. Anybody else or am I seeing stuff thst ain't there?

Could you perhaps explain? Sounds interesting.

[History of Westeros]

It's also worth noting that there's no evidence that any of these people's bows/masks/arrows were made from Heart Trees, which are the really sacred weirwoods that as I said before I don't think any devote follower of the old gods would cut (other than carving the face to make it a heart tree, obviously.) We have the vision of someone creating three arrows from the Winterfell heart tree, but he is alone and we don't have any idea who he is or how others would react to his actions.

It wasn't so much mindless vandalism as keeping track of the days.

I don't actually disagree that he might have engaged in some heavy self-reflection in (among other places) the Godswood. He may have even heard whispers and started to maybe wonder about those Northerner and their crazy tree gods. My argument was that I don't think he had a connection to the Old Gods prior to his "death" and did not choose Harrenhal because of it's proximity to the Green Men.

This is said well enough that I don't feel the need to respond myself, except for one thing.

By the Old Gods and The New: You seem to consider making items from weirwood (NONE of the examples remotely prove that healthy weirwood/heart tree branches or wood is used to make any of those items, by the way. Even the dark eyed youth cutting off branches is not definitive). Branches die and pulling them off can be healthy for the tree if done properly. This is called pruning, and I'm sure we've all heard of it. I'm not suggesting the dark-eyed youth was pruning, but the point is we have ZERO examples of someone making an item from living weirwood.

This example may help make my point clearer: Buffalo are/were sacred to many Native Americans, yet they still killed them. But it's not that simple. Killing a buffalo, eating it, using the bones and pelt, that is good and not sacreligious. Killing a buffalo for sport IS. In both examples the buffalo is dead.

Compare this to your point, which seems to ignore the difference between ritual carving and some guy cutting on a tree, as if those are somehow identical. There's a serious difference there.

Also I think you are misunderstanding my point about indifference. I'm not saying he was indifferent in general, that passage has a lot of meaning as you say. The wait meant a lot to him, and it was a meaningful section in the novella. I'm saying Daemon might be largely indifferent to what worshippers of the Old Gods might consider sacred. While someone else might think it a bit sacrilegious or at least improper to slash up a weirwood tree, Daemon clearly didn't have such reservations himself.

[History of Westeros]

So there is evidence of someone in the Winterfell godswood of old making 3 arrows from branches cut off the heart tree. This someone is most likely Brandon Snow. There is a small possibility that the individual wasn't a Stark/Snow (keeper of the old gods) and could have been a ward like Theon. However that is a very small possibility when compared to the much more likely scenario: the youth is Brandon Snow or some other Stark/Snow. In terms of the simple probability there's a better case to be made for this someone being a keeper of the old gods, as opposed to a completely unknown outsider with no association thereof.

There is no evidence to indicate that heart trees are more sacred than other weirwoods. The CotF sought to protect all weirwoods when they made their pact w/ the First Men.

So even if Bloodraven took pains to arm the Raven's teeth with only the finest sustainably harvested non-heart-tree-weirwood bows and arrows on the market (which there's no reason to believe he did), it was still harvested from the sacred trees protected under the terms of the Pact. Bloodraven (aka: the last greenseer), nevertheless, rocked his weirwood bow and made it rain w/ wierwood arrows all the same.

And the argument that it is sacrilegious to make permanent marks on heart trees relies on the obvious exception: the entire religion appears to be centered around carving permanent faces into heart trees and thus every heart tree is permanently defaced as part of the religion. Which apparently doesn't count.

So there's no evidence to indicate carving or cutting a weirwood is sacrilegious in the eyes of the faithful.

That is NOT the argument nor has it ever been, you simply keep pointing to that as if we're saying it. We're not.

Art in the Sistine Chapel relates to the religion being represented. Some guy painting a stick figure on a wall at the Vatican would not be art, yet both are paintings. This is an important distinction that you keep ignoring.

Carving a face into a weirwood is part of their religious tradition. Slashing a tree to mark the passage of time is not. Evidence that one is OK is not evidence that both are OK. So yes, it doesn't count.

No one has proved cutting up a weirwood is sacrilegious, on that much we agree. This is a theory, and no one is elevating it any higher than that. It's not much of a stretch to guess that objects of worship are expected to be treated with respect. It's extremely common for religions to treat their holy relics, altars, texts etc as sacred, and not to be used 'improperly'. Cutting something to mark the passage of time is not evidence of respectful treatment. It's quite the opposite.

[lil' ghost]

Completely irrelevant in a sense, but 'Blood and Cheese' definitely made me think of Varys and Illyrio. Varys for the blood magic performed at his expense and Illyrio because he is called the cheesemonger.

[By the Old Gods Not theNew]

This is said well enough that I don't feel the need to respond myself, except for one thing.

By the Old Gods and The New: You seem to consider making items from weirwood (NONE of the examples remotely prove that healthy weirwood/heart tree branches or wood is used to make any of those items, by the way. Even the dark eyed youth cutting off branches is not definitive). Branches die and pulling them off can be healthy for the tree if done properly. This is called pruning, and I'm sure we've all heard of it. I'm not suggesting the dark-eyed youth was pruning, but the point is we have ZERO examples of someone making an item from living weirwood.

This example may help make my point clearer: Buffalo are/were sacred to many Native Americans, yet they still killed them. But it's not that simple. Killing a buffalo, eating it, using the bones and pelt, that is good and not sacreligious. Killing a buffalo for sport IS. In both examples the buffalo is dead.

Compare this to your point, which seems to ignore the difference between ritual carving and some guy cutting on a tree, as if those are somehow identical. There's a serious difference there.

Also I think you are misunderstanding my point about indifference. I'm not saying he was indifferent in general, that passage has a lot of meaning as you say. The wait meant a lot to him, and it was a meaningful section in the novella. I'm saying Daemon might be largely indifferent to what worshippers of the Old Gods might consider sacred. While someone else might think it a bit sacrilegious or at least improper to slash up a weirwood tree, Daemon clearly didn't have such reservations himself.

It's not definitive...because there's this thing called pruning...that's not what he was doing...but....we have ZERO evidence...

It is strongly implied that the dark-eyed youth "sliced" the arrows off of living branches of the heart tree. He didn't break them off, he didn't find them on the ground, he "sliced three branches off the weirwood." You don't even believe your own alternative explanation. Plus this seems to have been repeated to the extent that Bloodraven armed the Raven's Teeth in war w/ sufficient arrows to make it rain over the Redgrass Field w/ their 300 bows (i see now you missed that example, and i think he used living weirwood branches not stumps). It's hard to see him relying on salvaged materials to supply the war effort. There's a simpler explanation: he cut off living weirwood branches to make hundreds if not thousands of arrows for war and in later years intimidation.

Your buffalo example only proves my point:

The counter argument is based on elaborating a bunch of possible exceptions that warrant ignoring the texts and presuming it's a "terrible sin"1 or sign of indifference/disrespect. This argument is seemingly based on the the readers sense of propriety vis-a-via heart trees and not what the text has to say about the matter.

From your perspective, relying on what you know about Native American's, Daemon's actions are interpreted as sacrilegious, a kin to killing buffalo for sport.

From my perspective based on stuff from the text, the face carvings and the use of weirwood for tools/weapons (the arrows seem to come from living weirwoods), by known followers of the old gods, it's not necessarily sacrilegious to cut or carve into a weirwood. Therefore Daemon's actions are nothing like killing buffalo for Sport. Such an analogy brings to mind Roose Bolton's final days in Harrenhal more than it does Daemon's.

I think for Daemon's actions in the godswood to be interpreted as sacrilegious, given what we know about carving and cutting of weirwood amongst the faithful, we would have to know his intent. He vary well may have meant for the marks to be ritualist, and that may have given their property to bleed afresh each spring. That said, I don't read Daemon's actions to be intentionally sacrilegious or indifferent to the old gods. I think if anything his actions can be seen as ritualistic/ceremonial record keeping of his time before the gods (keep in mind the stuff Jojen tells Bran about the CotF and lacking books/parchment and relying on the trees instead when they were in the cave). A record of events more significant than paper could contain.

That is NOT the argument nor has it ever been, you simply keep pointing to that as if we're saying it. We're not.

Art in the Sistine Chapel relates to the religion being represented. Some guy painting a stick figure on a wall at the Vatican would not be art, yet both are paintings. This is an important distinction that you keep ignoring.

Carving a face into a weirwood is part of their religious tradition. Slashing a tree to mark the passage of time is not. Evidence that one is OK is not evidence that both are OK. So yes, it doesn't count.

No one has proved cutting up a weirwood is sacrilegious, on that much we agree. This is a theory, and no one is elevating it any higher than that. It's not much of a stretch to guess that objects of worship are expected to be treated with respect. It's extremely common for religions to treat their holy relics, altars, texts etc as sacred, and not to be used 'improperly'. Cutting something to mark the passage of time is not evidence of respectful treatment. It's quite the opposite.

I understand the distinction you're making. I hope i've answered it above.

[Lion of the West]

Completely irrelevant in a sense, but 'Blood and Cheese' definitely made me think of Varys and Illyrio. Varys for the blood magic performed at his expense and Illyrio because he is called the cheesemonger.

I don't think its totally irrelevant. It could absolutely be a nod from GRRM to the connection that you have pointed out.

[Moondancer]

Who would be the source for the fight between Daemon and Aemond? Alys? Smallfolk?

Some details are shown as if seen from the bird's perspective... :)

[eggs]

Who would be the source for the fight between Daemon and Aemond? Alys? Smallfolk?

Some details are shown as if seen from the bird's perspective... :)

..it was a few smallfolk, wasnt it? that and the huge sword in Aemonds face, Alys, and his securely fastened chains.

[Rhaenys_Targaryen]

Ran,

I think I've found a couple of possible mistakes in the BoD trees:

House Beesbury has: his father, {Lord Alan} (b. 92), died in captivity during the Dance of the Dragons (d. 130),

House Hightower has: {Lady Lynett} (b. 92, d. 151), m. Lord Bertram Beesbury (b. 92), killed in the Dance of the Dragons (d. 130),

Alan and Bertram are supposed to be the same guy, no?

House Tyrell has Lord Lyonel born at 130, but the Green Council discuss about him at 129 (calling him a mewling boy in swadling clothes)

Also, apparently the Swyfts (and the Fossoways) were a noble house during the Dance. But that could have changed at the time of the conquest of Dorne, I guess...

I don't remember that being said at any point. I think you are missremembering this quote: "Though armies marched and met in savage battle, much of the slaughter took place on water and, specially, in the air."

Lord Lyonel's birth year has been fixed in the MUSH :) Thought I'd mention it, since I saw it and I remembered there was a question about it.

Someone also asked about Dalton Greyjoy. He still hasn't been added in the family trees. I don't know what that might mean..

[The hairy bear]

Thanks for leting me know, Rhaenys!

I see that Bertra has been changed to Alan everywhere too. :)