Heresy 101 The Crows

[wolfmaid7]

Nah, I think that he is just asking for corn, but I also think that he is asking for corn, not some skinchanger within.

To me that's the same thing though, the whole point of that joining. Not that some random Skinchager but because he may have been worn is the reason for the intelligence.Shadows of souls are in it, giving it the ability to be so well intelligent I'm basically saying because of the souls they can be players in their own right.if you get what in saying BC.

This is pivitol in the animism theme of this story ; they like the trees have the ability to take within themselves another's soul.Thus they become more intelligent,more humanistic which has to do with this ability.Hence the reason i've been saying that the true joining is initiated by them because they "allow/accept" you.They are essentially "Keeper's of Souls". If you have ever read "Ravensong" by Catherine Feher-Elston she weaves in the Native American stories and Myths of the Ravens and the Crows.Especially how closely they are linked to Souls and the other world.

So yes i truly believe they are operating on their own accord only because they are able to keep souls.

[King of Winters]

Nah, I think that he is just asking for corn, but I also think that he is asking for corn, not some skinchanger within.

There are times though when it sounds like the raven is trying to communicate with Jon or tell Old Be something as there's a time when he says something like "Benjen, dead". I don't think Bloodraven skinchanges him all the time but I think he used the raven to keep an eye (no pun intended) on the NW and what better way to do that then to see in on the LC's plans.

[Black Crow]

Its been mentioned before, but no discussion of Crows and the active role we seem agreed that they're playing would be complete without drawing attention to Susanna Clarke's Raven King; John Uskglas, whose sigil (and that of House Morrigen) I have appropriated for my own. John Uskglas and Brynden Blackwood are different characters in different stories and for a start John Uskglas isn't a dead man in a tree, but otherwise the similarities are remarkable and even if one is not directly based on the other those similarities point to a common origin

[JNR]

Hmmm. They're similar in that beyond the raven association, they're both powerful magic-users and male and they were both born in a fictional variant of England.

But that's where things seem to stop. Uskglass is immortal, still appearing to be a teenager hundreds of years after he was born. He is said to have learned his magic from fairies. He has three kingdoms, two in other dimensions, and purportedly leases territory from Lucifer (!) that is adjacent to Hell. His power level appears to be dramatically superior to Bloodraven's; Bloodraven can't even keep himself alive much longer.

In fact, all the magicians in Clarke's world are said to trace their capabilities back to Uskglass (Strange: "it is his magic that we do"). Bloodraven's skills, such as they are, don't seem to have inspired subsequent generations of magic-users.

[JNR]

Although I do find this remark about Uskglass quite interesting, considered in a SoIaF context:

We do not know why in 1202 he quarrelled with Winter and banished it from his kingdom, so that for four years Northern England enjoyed continual Summer.

[The Snowfyre Chorus]

Its been mentioned before, but no discussion of Crows and the active role we seem agreed that they're playing would be complete without drawing attention to Susanna Clarke's Raven King; John Uskglas, whose sigil (and that of House Morrigen) I have appropriated for my own. John Uskglas and Brynden Blackwood are different characters in different stories and for a start John Uskglas isn't a dead man in a tree, but otherwise the similarities are remarkable and even if one is not directly based on the other those similarities point to a common origin

There does seem to have been a remarkable overlap in source material employed by (and available to) both Clarke and Martin. Common themes, as well, though vastly different stories.

[Yield.]

I'm thinking Mormonts Raven has somebody in it and it ain't BR. The Wall would stop him reaching from the cave. I say there is a Singer/Skinchanger in it already spending its second life.

I hope it would one day allow Jon to wear him, the stories that bird might tell.

I thought we had established that the Wall does not block any skinchanging/warging back in the Wall thread. Ghost clearly knows Summer is beyond the Wall and that it is colder there from his thoughts in the wolf dream that Jon has in Dance.

While I don't disagree you about the raven having a shadow a of a soul in it I think it might have been that shadow of a Singer that helped BR understand what his future as a greenseer would be. Just because Bran had a three eyed crow to let him know what his destiny is it doesn't mean that BR, a grown man with established skinchanging abilities, had the same entity (? don't know what word to call it) come to him.

And yes I would love to hear the tales it could tell too.

[The Snowfyre Chorus]

Hmmm. They're similar in that beyond the raven association, they're both powerful magic-users and male and they were both born in a fictional variant of England.

But that's where things seem to stop. Uskglass is immortal, still appearing to be a teenager hundreds of years after he was born. He is said to have learned his magic from fairies. He has three kingdoms, two in other dimensions, and purportedly leases territory from Lucifer (!) that is adjacent to Hell. His power level appears to be dramatically superior to Bloodraven's; Bloodraven can't even keep himself alive much longer.

In fact, all the magicians in Clarke's world are said to trace their capabilities back to Uskglass (Strange: "it is his magic that we do"). Bloodraven's skills, such as they are, don't seem to have inspired subsequent generations of magic-users.

I don't think we've seen a figure in ASOIAF who would directly correspond to Uskglass. Night's King would be the closest thing, in my mind - though we have little enough to go on there. Bloodraven looks more like a tool to me.

[King of Winters]

Although I do find this remark about Uskglass quite interesting, considered in a SoIaF context:

Sounds like something to with the Kings of Winter.

[Black Crow]

Hmmm. They're similar in that beyond the raven association, they're both powerful magic-users and male and they were both born in a fictional variant of England.

But that's where things seem to stop. Uskglass is immortal, still appearing to be a teenager hundreds of years after he was born. He is said to have learned his magic from fairies. He has three kingdoms, two in other dimensions, and purportedly leases territory from Lucifer (!) that is adjacent to Hell. His power level appears to be dramatically superior to Bloodraven's; Bloodraven can't even keep himself alive much longer.

In fact, all the magicians in Clarke's world are said to trace their capabilities back to Uskglass (Strange: "it is his magic that we do"). Bloodraven's skills, such as they are, don't seem to have inspired subsequent generations of magic-users.

I'm not so sure. Just as John Uskglas learned his magic from Faeries so did Bloodraven from the Singers, and while he's certainly not as spry as Jon Uskglas he is indeed living far beyond his time, and on at least one occasion I can think of Uskglas does appear as a raven.

That being said, they are on the one hand certainly not the same story, but their roles and a number of very similar themes are enacted in both, and yes I particularly noted:

"We do not know why in 1202 he quarrelled with Winter and banished it from his kingdom, so that for four years Northern England enjoyed continual Summer"

[Black Crow]

Sounds like something to with the Kings of Winter.

Possibly, but the point I'm arguing is that both John Uskglas and Bloodraven although clearly not the same character do appear to have a common origin.

[Yield.]

I wanted to add to this discussion the crows that are Bran's companions in Winterfell. This is from Bran's second chapter in AGoT:

Old Nan told him a story about a bad little boy who climbed too high and was struck down by lightning, and how afterward the crows came to peck out his eyes. Bran was not impressed. There were crows’ nests atop the broken tower, where no one ever went but him, and sometimes he filled his pockets with corn before he climbed up there and the crows ate it right out of his hand. None of them had ever shown the slightest bit of interest in pecking out his eyes.

But no one ever got up to the jagged top of the structure now except for Bran and the crows... ...The last part was the scramble up the blackened stones to the eyrie, no more than ten feet, and then the crows would come round to see if you’d brought any corn... ...He liked the birds: the crows in the broken tower, the tiny little sparrows that nested in cracks between the stones, the ancient owl that slept in the dusty loft above the old armory. Bran knew them all.

And it's interesting that Martin ends the chapter in which Bran is pushed out the window with:

Somewhere off in the distance, a wolf was howling. Crows circled the broken tower, waiting for corn.

That the wolf is howling isn't that remarkable considering the bond between Bran and Summer and the link all the wolves share but Bran had no corn in his pockets that day so it's plays more like the crows are witnessing the defenestration with their circling above him.

And true to his belief about the crows, they do not come down to peck his eyes out. Crowfood he ain't. ;)

[King of Winters]

Possibly, but the point I'm arguing is that both John Uskglas and Bloodraven although clearly not the same character do appear to have a common origin.

I've just read up on some John Uskglas and some bits sound very much like ASOIAF. With him being tall and pale, reminds me of WW, and favouring black to wear, like the NW and being raised by Sídhe.

[Yield.]

To me that's the same thing though, the whole point of that joining. Not that some random Skinchager but because he may have been worn is the reason for the intelligence.Shadows of souls are in it, giving it the ability to be so well intelligent I'm basically saying because of the souls they can be players in their own right.if you get what in saying BC.

This is pivitol in the animism theme of this story ; they like the trees have the ability to take within themselves another's soul.Thus they become more intelligent,more humanistic which has to do with this ability.Hence the reason i've been saying that the true joining is initiated by them because they "allow/accept" you.They are essentially "Keeper's of Souls". If you have ever read "Ravensong" by Catherine Feher-Elston she weaves in the Native American stories and Myths of the Ravens and the Crows.Especially how closely they are linked to Souls and the other world.

So yes i truly believe they are operating on their own accord only because they are able to keep souls.

Completely agree with you. That's exactly what I meant in my earlier post about why the LCs raven in particular and the other ravens are so intelligent. They are very clever creatures to begin with and then when they choose a partner they learn from that partner the same way that Summer learns from Bran.

In the internal monologues we see with Bran and Summer that there is a constant interuption of the direwolf's thoughts with little things like 'steel man claws' are 'swords', 'the elk is not prey' etc. Summer learns from these thoughts and Bran learns how to understand what Summer is thinking and how he sees the world. Their connection is such that when Bran sends Summer to aid Jon to escape the wildlings band he's with Bran directs Summer through the fight.

What I am trying to illustrate is that if the connection between animal and skinchanger is so close that they can hear each others thoughts and share emotions then there is always going to be a residual amount of that knowledge shared between them left behind. Then if the raven's human or Singer is dead or gone the bird will retain that learning even without there being a Singer or human sharing their second life within the bird. Plus we are told by Varamyr that the essence of the person eventually fades to just background noise, so they are not ruling the animal and not even equal partners anymore.

Again, I don't think that Bloodraven is controlling the raven but that he can peek in to see what's happening if he wants to. The bird is acting on it's own from it's own and any previous skinchanger's knowledge of the world.

[Black Crow]

:agree:

Very well articulated.

[Black Crow]

There is another point to bear in mind here, which applies to direwolves as well, but particularly to crows, is the simple fact that crows profit from war. They are the ones who feast on the dead and conspicuously do so all the way through the story, which is why the Morrigan, the crow goddess is a god of death and probably also why we have that business of the Crone opening the door to death and letting the first raven fly into the world.

In this respect at least the Crows and the white walkers might be seen as natural allies.

[JNR]

I'm not so sure. Just as John Uskglas learned his magic from Faeries so did Bloodraven from the Singers, and while he's certainly not as spry as Jon Uskglas he is indeed living far beyond his time, and on at least one occasion I can think of Uskglas does appear as a raven.

Well, Bloodraven is ~125 and on the verge of death. Uskglass is around seven hundred years old, and doesn't even look twenty.

Bloodraven was also said to be a sorceror long before he had a thing to do with the CotF, as far as we know -- even before he joined the Watch. Meanwhile, Uskglass was literally raised by fairies from a child.

Uskglass certainly appears as a raven; he is the Raven King! But Bloodraven only has raven in his name. He never takes the form of a raven, except in the vague sense of skinchanging, and there's no sign he can transform into another creature.

I could make as strong a case for much earlier fantasy magicians such as Macros the Black (Raymond Feist's Riftwar saga), who more closely match Uskglass in immortality, power level, diversity of skills, influence, etc., than Bloodraven.

[Black Crow]

I was rather thinking of the three-eyed-crow rather than making a pedantic distinction between ravens and other corvidae. :cool4:

Nevertheless, oncve again I have to stress I'm not suggesting that they are one and the same but rather that they have a common literary origin

[JNR]

Interesting. We seem to have swapped positions; I recall when I first read Heresy, you thought the 3EC and Bloodraven weren't the same entity, and I thought they were.

I now think you were right back then, and that they aren't the same.

[Black Crow]

Interesting. We seem to have swapped positions; I recall when I first read Heresy, you thought the 3EC and Bloodraven weren't the same entity, and I thought they were.

I now think you were right back then, and that they aren't the same.

Ah, not quite. As outlined earlier I think that there is a link between the Singers and the Crows just as there is between the Starks and the direwolves, and this is why Bloodraven appears to Bran as a three-eyed-crow, but does so unwittingly in the sense that he may not be aware Bran sees him as a crow, rather than say a kindly old man.