Heresy 108

[King Benjen II]

:(

A novel is a novel and a show a show.

And then there are people who are not watchin the show.

Then the website should add an overall subforum. Not split up in show & novel.

What do you think Rickon's storyline will be in the remaining books?

[horizon]

What do you think Rickon's storyline will be in the remaining books?

From the books?

The things we know:

Ricken, his wolf and Osha parted ways with Bran, Hodor & The Reeds.

Davos is sent by Manderling to Skagos to find Rickon.

Two (possible) options (both can have alternate paths, but it is a general guess by me):

Davos does not find Rickon or finds him death -> end

Davos finds Rickon -> brings Rickon to the North of Westeros to give Manderling a great tool within the politics of the North.

[addicted to snow]

What do you think Rickon's storyline will be in the remaining books?

Rickon's purpose is to be the 'Stark in Winterfell' & carry on the Stark line after the story comes to a close...

[Modesty Lannister]

Going back to Coldhands. From what I read in the books and on this thread, I'd assume the following:

1. He is a singularity. He is not the white, he is not the Other, he is not alive. He is undead and he serves Bloodraven who was/is a powerful sorcerer. He may have used a red priests' method of making an undead to serve him. I'd like your thoughts on that.

2. Black hands can be frostbitten hands that he had when he died or burned hands when he was trying to burn a white at the time he died. Being dead for a long time is very hard to define. Sam noticed that corpses of whites don't smell, nor rot, so it is really difficult to speculate on this.

3. Knowledge about the secret gate may be provided to him by BR who can see the past through the trees/may have known about the gate when he was a LC.

4. Covering his face because he is a Stark may be right, but not necessarily. Does anyone know if there was a Stark in the NW while BR was the Lord Commander? It would be interesting to see who it was.

5. Benjen Stark is too tempting a candidate to be Coldhands. That's why I think he isn't. Also, I do not think he's dead. GRRM would not introduce a character so early on, only to lose him forever. We've see characters reappearing in the Greyjoy, Connington, Targaryen camp and hear their histories in retrospect. Benjen we actually met. There is no way he was there as a Winterfell feast decoration. I strongly suspect he is in cahoots with MR, but since I cannot prove it, best leave it at that.

[Tyryan Lannister]

:(

A novel is a novel and a show a show.

And then there are people who are not watchin the show.

Then the website should add an overall subforum. Not split up in show & novel.

You haven't been in Heresy for too long, I take it?

As wolfmaid7 and others have pointed out, we here in Heresyland rely on the show as a possible source of verification and correction--which is something we do with anything and everything ASOIAF related outside of the canonical texts themselves (interviews, Not-a-Blog posts, emails, artist renderings, Dunk & Egg, Princess & Queen, world app, the to-be-released World Book, excerpts from the World Book and Winds). Someone finds something of potential importance, talks about it/asks a question about it, and we as a community essentially peer review it. The show can be instrumental in this; the important and sometimes difficult part is reconciling the non-canon show with the texts. For most things in the show, there isn't anything to gleam from, due to the show being an oversimplification of the texts (as an example, the show calling everythng under the sun a warg--as readers, we know this is flat wrong; all of them are skinchangers, with a warg being a special type who bonds with wolves). Sometimes, however, the simplifying of the text results in a few important insights that have been made because of the show, namely confirmation of our supposition that Craster was sacrificing his sons to the White Walkers; seemingly a confirmation of wolfmaid7's dragonbond theory; further possible confirmation of Others as a catch-all and White Walkers as the particular name for the Ice folk (never once is the term "Others" utilized in this way on the show); and further evidence of there not being any actual connection between what is termed The Great Other and the catch-all term of The Others.

[Tyryan Lannister]

Going back to Coldhands. From what I read in the books and on this thread, I'd assume the following:

1. He is a singularity. He is not the white, he is not the Other, he is not alive. He is undead and he serves Bloodraven who was/is a powerful sorcerer. He may have used a red priests' method of making an undead to serve him. I'd like your thoughts on that.

2. Black hands can be frostbitten hands that he had when he died or burned hands when he was trying to burn a white at the time he died. Being dead for a long time is very hard to define. Sam noticed that corpses of whites don't smell, nor rot, so it is really difficult to speculate on this.

3. Knowledge about the secret gate may be provided to him by BR who can see the past through the trees/may have known about the gate when he was a LC.

4. Covering his face because he is a Stark may be right, but not necessarily. Does anyone know if there was a Stark in the NW while BR was the Lord Commander? It would be interesting to see who it was.

5. Benjen Stark is too tempting a candidate to be Coldhands. That's why I think he isn't. Also, I do not think he's dead. GRRM would not introduce a character so early on, only to lose him forever. We've see characters reappearing in the Greyjoy, Connington, Targaryen camp and hear their histories in retrospect. Benjen we actually met. There is no way he was there as a Winterfell feast decoration. I strongly suspect he is in cahoots with MR, but since I cannot prove it, best leave it at that.

1) very very interesting; I don't know if this is something discussed during my three month hiatus last fall, but Don't recall having seen that theory before; definitely worth looking into

2) possible evidence of your theory from question 1; especially sense Summer is able to smell,that smething is different about him (it is possible that they can smell something different about the Wights while we mere mortals cannot, but we have yet to see a confirmation of this)

3) I theorize that BR did know of the Black Gate from his time as LC; one of three ways that I feel he found out: 1. He had his own 3EC-esque dream creature bidding him North and guiding him 2. He read about it from a theorized letter passed down from former LC to new LC (think the President's letter that the departing one customarily leaves for his successor) and/or 3. Aemon read about it in one of the now-forgotten tomes in the under-Library and told Uncle Brynden about it

4) Myself and a few others here speculate that just like There must always be a Stark in Winterfell, so too must there always be one in the Watch--explains why Benjen took the Black, why Jon seemed destined to take the Black, and why Osric (?) Stark, who was elected LC at the age of 10 or whatever, was even at the Wall at that early age to begin with. The biggest clue as to this is that everyone knows Jon is a Stark because he looks like one--having only met the one Stark in Benjen is no where near a large enough sample size for someone like Craster to have an idea of what the Stark look entails; but having met two or three (or maybe even four or five) through his 50+ years would give him some notion of the family looks.

5) Agreed with the Benjen =/= Coldhands; I also do think that Benjen, possibly through Aemon, is work with BR, although I disagree with your assessment of what Martin may or may not do--and even if Benjen is still alive, we might not ever actually see him again, and Martin will just let that mystery live on; but back to the working with BR stuff, I hold that not only is BR working with Benjen, but he is also working with Mance, while the two of them have know idea that the other is in the fold (and they have never officially met, either--yes, they have seen each other, and Mance now knows what Benjen looks like, but Benjen did not know that that was Mance).

[Elaena Targaryen]

Sometimes, however, the simplifying of the text results in a few important insights that have been made because of the show, namely confirmation of our supposition that Craster was sacrificing his sons to the White Walkers

Yes, this one in particular was important.

Remember how we had other boarders popping in the Heresy threads all of the time treating us like loony's for thinking it possible that Craster actually did give his sons to the WW's and that the WW's actually might have took them - as opposed to Craster just leaving the sons out to die in the elements since they were Craster's "competition"?

I remember at the time that this event happened in the show all of that stopped... do you still get challenged about that theory or is the fact it was in the show still help with acceptance/allowances?

[Tyryan Lannister]

Yes, this one in particular was important.

Remember how we had other boarders popping in the Heresy threads all of the time treating us like loony's for thinking it possible that Craster actually did give his sons to the WW's and that the WW's actually might have took them - as opposed to Craster just leaving the sons out to die in the elements since they were Craster's "competition"?

I remember at the time that this event happened in the show all of that stopped... do you still get challenged about that theory or is the fact it was in the show still help with acceptance/allowances?

A few times someone will still come in and question it, but then when we point out the evidence from the show, they come around and accept the theory as fact

[Modesty Lannister]

1) very very interesting; I don't know if this is something discussed during my three month hiatus last fall, but Don't recall having seen that theory before; definitely worth looking into

2) possible evidence of your theory from question 1; especially sense Summer is able to smell,that smething is different about him (it is possible that they can smell something different about the Wights while we mere mortals cannot, but we have yet to see a confirmation of this)

3) I theorize that BR did know of the Black Gate from his time as LC; one of three ways that I feel he found out: 1. He had his own 3EC-esque dream creature bidding him North and guiding him 2. He read about it from a theorized letter passed down from former LC to new LC (think the President's letter that the departing one customarily leaves for his successor) and/or 3. Aemon read about it in one of the now-forgotten tomes in the under-Library and told Uncle Brynden about it

4) Myself and a few others here speculate that just like There must always be a Stark in Winterfell, so too must there always be one in the Watch--explains why Benjen took the Black, why Jon seemed destined to take the Black, and why Osric (?) Stark, who was elected LC at the age of 10 or whatever, was even at the Wall at that early age to begin with. The biggest clue as to this is that everyone knows Jon is a Stark because he looks like one--having only met the one Stark in Benjen is no where near a large enough sample size for someone like Craster to have an idea of what the Stark look entails; but having met two or three (or maybe even four or five) through his 50+ years would give him some notion of the family looks.

5) Agreed with the Benjen =/= Coldhands; I also do think that Benjen, possibly through Aemon, is work with BR, although I disagree with your assessment of what Martin may or may not do--and even if Benjen is still alive, we might not ever actually see him again, and Martin will just let that mystery live on; but back to the working with BR stuff, I hold that not only is BR working with Benjen, but he is also working with Mance, while the two of them have know idea that the other is in the fold (and they have never officially met, either--yes, they have seen each other, and Mance now knows what Benjen looks like, but Benjen did not know that that was Mance).

Hello "cousin", thank you for your input. I agree with 3) and 4) is a very interesting theory, but we have to know why there always has to be a Stark at Winterfell or/and on the Wall. Do you have any ideas? It must have a deeper meaning than "we must do our duty always". 5) Well MR was disguised as a bard and came to Winterfell from the south with the king's host, or so he claims. But he also claims that his knowledge about the feast originates from Benjen. The way he says this makes us believe that there was a chain of mouths between MR and BS, but must it be the case? Also, for MR to climb over the Wall to go to the feast means that he has his people on the other side because how will he be able to disguise himself? One doesn't climb the Wall dressed as a bard. MR is not superhuman. The other solution is that he also knew and used the gate. And finally, the third solution would be that he was smuggled by Benjen through Castle Black. That would explain Benjen "not knowing him" at the feast. On the other hand, Benjen may have never met MR and has no clue how he looks like. Thoughts?

[redriver]

Yes, this one in particular was important.

Remember how we had other boarders popping in the Heresy threads all of the time treating us like loony's for thinking it possible that Craster actually did give his sons to the WW's and that the WW's actually might have took them - as opposed to Craster just leaving the sons out to die in the elements since they were Craster's "competition"?

I remember at the time that this event happened in the show all of that stopped... do you still get challenged about that theory or is the fact it was in the show still help with acceptance/allowances?

Most agree,one or two are still in denial.

[Tyryan Lannister]

Hello "cousin", thank you for your input. I agree with 3) and 4) is a very interesting theory, but we have to know why there always has to be a Stark at Winterfell or/and on the Wall. Do you have any ideas? It must have a deeper meaning than "we must do our duty always". 5) Well MR was disguised as a bard and came to Winterfell from the south with the king's host, or so he claims. But he also claims that his knowledge about the feast originates from Benjen. The way he says this makes us believe that there was a chain of mouths between MR and BS, but must it be the case? Also, for MR to climb over the Wall to go to the feast means that he has his people on the other side because how will he be able to disguise himself? One doesn't climb the Wall dressed as a bard. MR is not superhuman. The other solution is that he also knew and used the gate. And finally, the third solution would be that he was smuggled by Benjen through Castle Black. That would explain Benjen "not knowing him" at the feast. On the other hand, Benjen may have never met MR and has no clue how he looks like. Thoughts?

There is definitely something deeper than duty with the There must be a Stark things--evidence of this is the massive storm that is currently engulfing much of the North seemingly emanating from Winterfell; the origins of these attachments are theorized to be with a speculated Second Pact between the First Men and the WW and/or the Children that ended the Long Night, with Winterfell thought to be the sight where the LH (whom some of us believe was in fact Bran the Builder) found the Children, and that he built Winterfell by becoming the first human greenseer and having his seat under the Winterfell heart tree deep down in the crypts and his proginy/extended family/clan founding a fort-city around him, with eventually one of those descendants founding what is now called the Nightfort and ruling from there as the King of Winter until the fall of the Night's King and the supplanting of the senior Stark line of the Kings of Winter and their seat at the Nightfort with the junior one of the Kings in the North with their seat at Winterfell, and the reason for the Nightfort being where it is (ie above the Black Gate) is also tied into the There Must Always and the Second Pact and that because of this, even with the Starks officially moving their seat of power from their "capital" at the Nightfort to the ancestral home at Winterfell, they continued to have the "honorguard" at the Wall exist in the now-termed Night's Watch and continued to donate one of their own to the cause

On Mance, hmm, yeah, dunno. You present some very interesting points. I am currently at a loss of how to reconcile those points with everything else we know. Will think on it.

[Urrax2]

You haven't been in Heresy for too long, I take it?

As wolfmaid7 and others have pointed out, we here in Heresyland rely on the show as a possible source of verification and correction--which is something we do with anything and everything ASOIAF related outside of the canonical texts themselves (interviews, Not-a-Blog posts, emails, artist renderings, Dunk & Egg, Princess & Queen, world app, the to-be-released World Book, excerpts from the World Book and Winds). Someone finds something of potential importance, talks about it/asks a question about it, and we as a community essentially peer review it. The show can be instrumental in this; the important and sometimes difficult part is reconciling the non-canon show with the texts. For most things in the show, there isn't anything to gleam from, due to the show being an oversimplification of the texts (as an example, the show calling everythng under the sun a warg--as readers, we know this is flat wrong; all of them are skinchangers, with a warg being a special type who bonds with wolves). Sometimes, however, the simplifying of the text results in a few important insights that have been made because of the show, namely confirmation of our supposition that Craster was sacrificing his sons to the White Walkers; seemingly a confirmation of wolfmaid7's dragonbond theory; further possible confirmation of Others as a catch-all and White Walkers as the particular name for the Ice folk (never once is the term "Others" utilized in this way on the show); and further evidence of there not being any actual connection between what is termed The Great Other and the catch-all term of The Others.

:agree: (overall, that is; not with some of the individual points (e.g. Others means the popsicles and nobody else; it's not used in the show because of "Lost").

[Lord Willam Stark]

There is definitely something deeper than duty with the There must be a Stark things--evidence of this is the massive storm that is currently engulfing much of the North seemingly emanating from Winterfell; the origins of these attachments are theorized to be with a speculated Second Pact between the First Men and the WW and/or the Children that ended the Long Night, with Winterfell thought to be the sight where the LH (whom some of us believe was in fact Bran the Builder) found the Children, and that he built Winterfell by becoming the first human greenseer and having his seat under the Winterfell heart tree deep down in the crypts and his proginy/extended family/clan founding a fort-city around him, with eventually one of those descendants founding what is now called the Nightfort and ruling from there as the King of Winter until the fall of the Night's King and the supplanting of the senior Stark line of the Kings of Winter and their seat at the Nightfort with the junior one of the Kings in the North with their seat at Winterfell, and the reason for the Nightfort being where it is (ie above the Black Gate) is also tied into the There Must Always and the Second Pact and that because of this, even with the Starks officially moving their seat of power from their "capital" at the Nightfort to the ancestral home at Winterfell, they continued to have the "honorguard" at the Wall exist in the now-termed Night's Watch and continued to donate one of their own to the cause

On Mance, hmm, yeah, dunno. You present some very interesting points. I am currently at a loss of how to reconcile those points with everything else we know. Will think on it.

Damn it Lannister, I was just typing this exact thing and you posted it first. Lol, couldn't agree more ^

[Modesty Lannister]

There is definitely something deeper than duty with the There must be a Stark things--evidence of this is the massive storm that is currently engulfing much of the North seemingly emanating from Winterfell; the origins of these attachments are theorized to be with a speculated Second Pact between the First Men and the WW and/or the Children that ended the Long Night, with Winterfell thought to be the sight where the LH (whom some of us believe was in fact Bran the Builder) found the Children, and that he built Winterfell by becoming the first human greenseer and having his seat under the Winterfell heart tree deep down in the crypts and his proginy/extended family/clan founding a fort-city around him, with eventually one of those descendants founding what is now called the Nightfort and ruling from there as the King of Winter until the fall of the Night's King and the supplanting of the senior Stark line of the Kings of Winter and their seat at the Nightfort with the junior one of the Kings in the North with their seat at Winterfell, and the reason for the Nightfort being where it is (ie above the Black Gate) is also tied into the There Must Always and the Second Pact and that because of this, even with the Starks officially moving their seat of power from their "capital" at the Nightfort to the ancestral home at Winterfell, they continued to have the "honorguard" at the Wall exist in the now-termed Night's Watch and continued to donate one of their own to the cause

On Mance, hmm, yeah, dunno. You present some very interesting points. I am currently at a loss of how to reconcile those points with everything else we know. Will think on it.

Interesting take on "there must always be…" Is there a link to a thread or an essay on this?

[Modesty Lannister]

Damn it Lannister, I was just typing this exact thing and you posted it first. Lol, couldn't agree more ^

Lannisters are clever, aren't they? :cool4:

[Tyryan Lannister]

Interesting take on "there must always be…" Is there a link to a thread or an essay on this?

It's one of the core heresies... Stick around long enough, and you'll see it pop up again; otherwise take a look at one of the themed threads from the 90s, H100, or way back in H50-54 or so, or pick any random thread from before H90 and look around for talk on the various topics; but, as I said, your best bet will be to just stick with the current Heresy, and it will come back at some point

[Lord Willam Stark]

Lannisters are clever, aren't they? :cool4:

So far, I've been impressed, and it's not easy to impress a Stark.

[Lord Willam Stark]

Modesty- you could read through H93-Winterfell- lots of very good points in that one.

[redriver]

Interesting take on "there must always be…" Is there a link to a thread or an essay on this?

Or this one..

http://asoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/topic/81078-winter-fell/

[Him of Seven Faces]

There is definitely something deeper than duty with the There must be a Stark things--evidence of this is the massive storm that is currently engulfing much of the North seemingly emanating from Winterfell; the origins of these attachments are theorized to be with a speculated Second Pact between the First Men and the WW and/or the Children that ended the Long Night, with Winterfell thought to be the sight where the LH (whom some of us believe was in fact Bran the Builder) found the Children, and that he built Winterfell by becoming the first human greenseer and having his seat under the Winterfell heart tree deep down in the crypts and his proginy/extended family/clan founding a fort-city around him, with eventually one of those descendants founding what is now called the Nightfort and ruling from there as the King of Winter until the fall of the Night's King and the supplanting of the senior Stark line of the Kings of Winter and their seat at the Nightfort with the junior one of the Kings in the North with their seat at Winterfell, and the reason for the Nightfort being where it is (ie above the Black Gate) is also tied into the There Must Always and the Second Pact and that because of this, even with the Starks officially moving their seat of power from their "capital" at the Nightfort to the ancestral home at Winterfell, they continued to have the "honorguard" at the Wall exist in the now-termed Night's Watch and continued to donate one of their own to the cause

Where have you been hiding you little halfman hand heretic?!?! I am sure you haven't but its been awhile since i've seen you post anything like this and it was so damn refreshing. Copy+Paste my brain. This is my new assumption of what the " truth " is. Also gonna PM you that idea for the next thread.