Heresy 113

[Black Crow]

Fair point. But then it gets even more complicated because the WWs seem to want the baby now, since small paul et co come after him before cold hands comes to the rescue.

Not necessarily. Small Paul is a wight and according to Gilly drawn to the "stink of life" in her baby, there's no reason to think he's trying to collect the infant on behalf of anyone other than himself - which may be why Coldhands (and the crows) intervenes to get the baby safely through to the other side of the Wall.

[comicwolf]

Just a quick thought on changelings. While faeries were thought to replace human children with changelings, this was not the only mention of changelings in folklore here. Changelings did on occasion replace fully grown adults, sometimes leading to witchhunt-esque killings of women believed to have been replaced by changelings.

[Phillip Frye]

But I think Craster's wives are of a different breed than other wildling women, inasmuch as them being aware of, and perhaps understanding, the ancient deals, or at least Craster's deal, and not sharing the same fear as the other wildlings do of the WW. Which I think was what the show was doing with that "Gift for the Gods" chant, i.e. displaying a certain reverence for and understanding of the WWs that isn't there among those following Mance.

Oh, I think that Mance and the other wildlings have plenty of reverence for the White Walkers, which is why they have been trying to get the hell out of Dodge after the Tithe to Hell stopped working and the wights showed up.

[King of Winters]

This. I want to see this on the show.

Even though that would be funny to see on the show, I don't see why the WW accepted the sheep.

[comicwolf]

Even though that would be funny to see on the show, I don't see why the WW accepted the sheep.

Suggesting, perhaps, that some other force was appeasing them?

[Phillip Frye]

Assuming that’s the case, wouldn’t it just mean that the “reveal” means that Jon’s children- like Craster’s- would be candidates for popsicilization?

How does that help him sort out the ice side of the equation? Does it put him in position to negotiate a bargain with the popsicles that he will be their new baby-donor?

This point that you raise may explain why the Night's Watch was later designed to be a celibate order. We have discussed in the past how it was illogical that the Night's Watch members were not permitted to have families, wives, smallholdings, etc. because those would have allowed the Night's Watch to better populate the Gift and defend the realms of Men.

I wonder if the reason to keep the Night's Watch from having children had to do with certain members of the Night's Watch who would have had the necessary blood to reignite the abominations created by the Night's King. In other words, knowing that the Starks would always be on the Wall, the rules were set up to ensure that the Starks fathered no babies capable of being turned into White Walkers.

If this were the case, then a previous Lord Commander made a huge mistake when he turned away a young wildling woman from Whitetree bearing a Stark bastard.

[Phillip Frye]

Even though that would be funny to see on the show, I don't see why the WW accepted the sheep.

It would be even better if the producers could get the five surviving members of Monty Python's Flying Circus to voice the demon sheep.

[nedhed]

Not necessarily. Small Paul is a wight and according to Gilly drawn to the "stink of life" in her baby, there's no reason to think he's trying to collect the infant on behalf of anyone other than himself - which may be why Coldhands (and the crows) intervenes to get the baby safely through to the other side of the Wall.

No, not necessarily, but still, it's not just small paul, it's a bunch of wights. So for this all to jibe, you've got a rouge band of wights that neither bloodraven nor the WWs are influencing. I'm not saying it's not possible, just that it keeps getting more and more complicated.

[King of Winters]

It would be even better if the producers could get the five surviving members of Monty Python's Flying Circus to voice the demon sheep.

That would be epic!

[wolfmaid7]

When she approaches Jon to ask him about taking the babe the first time the watch is at Craster's, the exchange goes like this, suggesting fear:

“Won’t Craster be angry with you?” “My father drank overmuch of the Lord Crow’s wine last night. He’ll sleep most of the day.”

Firstly, that does not suggest fear because she didn't answer Jon's question she simply says my father is drunk.How do you get fear out of that?

Secondly,this conversation does NOT indicate fear of Craster at all( this is the next page over in the same conversation you quoted.Why did you not include this?

Jon: Is it Craster who frightens you?"

Gilly: "For the baby not for me.If it's a girl that's not so bad,she'll grow in a few years and he'll marry her.

[nedhed]

I think it was fair of me to say it suggests fear. She was definitely concealing her actions.

[wolfmaid7]

1. This has often been discussed in Heresy, but I don't think there's any agreed upon answer. It's the same question of why "magic" has suddenly returned/strengthened, why the direwolves appeared when they did. Some folks talk about big, global-level cycles of fire-ice balance, others point to Summerhall as a precipitating event (which might work with Craster's timeline, more or less, given his apparent age), but I don't see any clear answer to this question.

2. They may have begun attacking only with the beginning of Craster's sacrifices. They just don't attack him, as the sacrificer, but perhaps the number of attacks have simply been growing as the numbers of WWs, created via the sacrifices, grow?

3. See #2, but maybe this now means the WWs need a new source of lives for fashioning new WWs?

4. Not if they think they can keep sacrificing their babies? If, e.g., it's them, rather than the particular father, that is important in the production of sacrificial victims?

5. Awful as the methods may be, aren't they doing an okay job making new babies? And as I noted in Heresy 111 or 112, I thought it was interesting the way that the show was depicting Karl(?) kind of transforming into Craster 2.0. I think we're likely to see a quick end to that transformation tonight, but it did suggest a mechanism for perpetuation of the sacrificial setup.

6. Craster only sacrificed sheep when there were no babies available, and those were the next most valuable thing he had. No, I don't think the WWs could do much of anything with sheep, but by the logic of sacrifice, from the perspective of the sacrificer, it makes sense. Here's what Gilly says:

So, the "white cold" comes and that means the WWs are near, and a sacrifice is required. If there's a male child, it is offered, but if not, the next most valuable thing is apparently a sheep. The passage tells us that the cold which signals the arrival of the WWs now comes more often. In the past, perhaps it was rare enough that there would always be an available male child. Why not always use sheep? Well, maybe because they, like you, realize that sheep can hardly become WWs.

The kicker to this Hrfanjr is that the "White cold" or the Snow storm which is what they are talking about (the white cold rising out there) is only accompanied by Wights.The reverse happens with the WWs it gets cold when they come and the wind stops.In all the visuals we the reader have seen for sure of WWs they don't have this with them.But we sure do see it with the wights en masse or in the vicinity of them.Which brings me back to the point on the Fist and how Wights look through the Snow storm.In the White cold (Snow storm) it's possible that what the women are seeing is something else.

[JNR]

I've some of these questions myself and even asserted the idea that Craster made a deal with the WWs as ridiculous ( no disrespect) but did Popsicles approach the hut knock on the doorpost and say.It doesn't make sense

Agreed, it doesn't.

There's also the language issue. In what language was this deal struck? Did these Others somehow learn to speak Common, or did Craster learn to speak their sounds-like-ice-breaking language? I just can't imagine either one happening.

If it's an ancient tradition, Craster being the most recent iteration, my questions pretty much all remain. It's hard to believe Craster's ancestors all generated enough sons for thousands of years without fail... and it's only now that Craster started offering sheep that the Others got all offended. "This mofo is giving us shitty-ass, bogus, mutton-flavored non-sons. Deal is off and we are invading."

Or, if it's that the Others appeared because Craster started offering them sons... (no ancient tradition, obviously)... then I am curious why they didn't appear when the Night's King was said to have spent 13 years offering them sacrifices.

It would be even better if the producers could get the five surviving members of Monty Python's Flying Circus to voice the demon sheep.

I would greatly enjoy this. Especially if they could work this idea into it as well...

Clever, murderous, blue-eyed, sheep in trees. It just sells itself!

"It may be that these sheep are laborin' under the misapprehension that they are evil."

[Phillip Frye]

I would greatly enjoy this. Especially if they could work this idea into it as well...

Clever, murderous, blue-eyed, sheep in trees. It just sells itself!

"It may be that these sheep are laborin' under the misapprehension that they are evil."

Exactly where I was going with it. Too bad that Graham Chapman is no longer with them although they have taken an urn with them to live performances (that they usually manage to knock over).

[Phillip Frye]

If it's an ancient tradition, Craster being the most recent iteration, my questions pretty much all remain. It's hard to believe Craster's ancestors all generated enough sons for thousands of years without fail... and it's only now that Craster started offering sheep that the Others got all offended. "This mofo is giving us shitty-ass, bogus, mutton-flavored non-sons. Deal is off and we are invading."

I'm not certain how far back the child sacrifice goes. It seems significant that Craster's mother initially tried to get him south of the Wall, where he wouldn't have to pay the tithe. If the rumors in the book that Craster's father wore black and was a Stark were true, then Craster's father was not involved in child sacrifice. This whole thing got going and the White Walkers began to regain numbers when Craster got started with his mothers/daughters/sister-wives franchise at the keep.

[Melifeather]

If the Nights King ruled for 13 years and was discovered to be sacrificing to the gods, who's babies was he sacrificing? If his Queen was human, as I suspect, then the two of them were having children and sacrificing their sons. How many sons could they have had in 13 years? Odds of having a boy are 51% to 49% for having a girl. Most stillborns and early infant death are boys, as well as a shorter life span for men in general, so the ratio evens out somewhat down the line. So in 13 years they likely would have had 6-7 boys. If there weren't many White Walkers left from the Long Night pushed north of the Wall, or maybe there weren't any, then when the Nights King's sin was discovered there would have been very few White Walkers. If the Nights Watch remembered that obsidian kills them, it likely wasn't hard to extinguish 6-7 White Walkers. Fast forward to Craster, since the text doesn't mention anyone doing this practice before him, I'm going to say that nobody was. I think the women of Craster's keep were of the same tribe as the Nights King's bride. They are the ones to convert Craster and convince him to begin sacrificing his sons.

Craster has 19 wives. He is nearing the end of his lifespan when we meet him in the story. I don't know that he mentions how many sons he has in the books, but in the show he claims 99, and the one last week makes 100. That's 5 sons per wife, and likely 9 children per wife if we include possible girls, or 171 children, if we use the average ratio of boy to girl births. It kind of makes the 100 number look a little ridiculous. In any case, the White Walkers would make a very small army on their own.

The point I'd like to get across is this: I don't think there was anyone sacrificing between the Nights King and Craster. Futhermore, I don't think the White Walkers are their own race. I think they are magical ice creatures that can only be made using blood sacrifice, and that blood has to be a cross between the women of Craster's Keep and a Stark. We've discussed in Heresy before of the likelihood that Craster was a Stark bastard.

[Phillip Frye]

We've discussed in Heresy before of the likelihood that Craster was a Stark bastard.

I thought that it was implied in the books by Ygritte. Does anyone have a quote of her conversation with Jon Snow 2.0?

[Phillip Frye]

Craster has 19 wives. He is nearing the end of his lifespan when we meet him in the story. I don't know that he mentions how many sons he has in the books, but in the show he claims 99, and the one last week makes 100.

I'm going to nitpick. I think that Craster said on the show that he has had ninety-nine sons while Gilly is in labor, which would make Monster no. 100 and the new recruit no. 101.

[Melifeather]

I'm going to nitpick. I think that Craster said on the show that he has had ninety-nine sons while Gilly is in labor, which would make Monster no. 100 and the new recruit no. 101.

That could very well be true, but I don' think it matters if it's 100 or 101. I think that's a crazy number of sons, because he'd then have to have close to 100 girls, along with his 19 wives in his keep. It doesn't seem likely.

edited 200 children to 100 girls.

[The Prophet of Patch]

Loving these threads. Seeing the question of why the WW have started popping up again getting thrown around...has Heresy ever discussed Bloodraven's involvement at length? This Ragnarok theory (http://gameofthronesandnorsemythology.blogspot.com/, I'm sure it's been mentioned here before) isn't the most well substantiated, but his take on BR as the "deceiver" has always intrigued the hell out of me.