Heresy 128

[lokisnow]

(edited to correct a mental mixup)

it sounds as though Ned has been under a rain of blood before, just what did he find at the Tower of Joy, did it rain blood upon him when he entered? (I don't think he found Lyanna there, perhaps he found innumerable blood sacrifices there?)

In terms of Targaryen reincarnation--connect it to "three heads of the dragon" and interpret it heretically instead of traditionally.

Only death can pay for life. Well if the life in question is a mother-fucking Dragon, perhaps it takes more than one death to pay for Dragon's life.

Perhaps it even needs more than one kind of blood. Targaryen blood, First Men blood (Jenny of Oldstones, Egg's wife, dead at Summerhall alongside the others, iirc), and another. If we look at Dany, she also used Stallion blood--that is to say the Dothraki, which might have completed the trifecta of necessary blood price.

And remember, southerners call one constellation the Stallion, but north of the Wall they call it The Horned Lord...

in any event, quickening a dragon egg may be akin to quickening a live ship in Robin Hobb's story, perhaps it takes multiple Targaryen deaths to do it (and maybe that is why they were so prolific planting all those dragon seed bastards...)

***

Also Jaime's vision of Rhaegar in the underworld is pretty fascinating:

He saw them too. They were armored all in snow, it seemed to him, and ribbons of mist swirled back from their shoulders. The visors of their helms were closed, but Jaime Lannister did not need to look upon their faces to know them.

Five had been his brothers . Oswell Whent and Jon Darry. Lewyn Martell, a prince of Dorne. The White Bull, Gerold Hightower . Ser Arthur Dayne, Sword of the Morning. And beside them, crowned in mist and grief with his long hair streaming behind him, rode Rhaegar Targaryen, Prince of Dragonstone and rightful heir to the Iron Throne.

Martin, George R.R. (2003-03-04). A Storm of Swords: A Song of Ice and Fire: Book Three (pp. 611-612). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

[Eira Seren]

Just when I thought it was safe, my dad sends me this

[redriver]

Was Ned at Summerhall?Am I missing something?Link or quote needed please.

Ah,I think you mean the Tower of Joy?

Edit-No,you don't.This is baffling.

[Maester Feelgood]

On a different tangent, the reincarnation theory had me thinking that what if warging an dragon bonding are almost total opposites. In warging, the human or singer forces his will or spirit upon the animal, tree or what have you. Though, in dragon bonding the dragon has to choose you for undisclosed reasons. It's frequently written that the heart of a dragon can never be fully understood, during warging the others presence can be felt by the warg. Exemplified by Bran conversating with Hodor and reassuring him not to be scared. So the heart of a warged creature can be understood and perhaps the heart (or nature) of a dragon would be better known if warging had ever occured.

You could even look at how the Starks have wolf dreams and the Targs have prophetic dreams. The prophetic Targaryen dreams often include the presence a dragon in them. Wolf dreams are basically involuntary warging but what if Targaryen prophetic dreams are dragon's having a Targ dream in effect. Like the dragon is warging the Targaryen having said dream. Food for thought, I'm just throwing stuff out there.

[lokisnow]

Was Ned at Summerhall?Am I missing something?Link or quote needed please.

Ah,I think you mean the Tower of Joy?

Edit-No,you don't.This is baffling.

No you're right. Tower of Joy, I made a boneheaded mistake. :-p

[TheTowerOfJoy]

Ser Waymar's sword was Castle forged steel not Valyrian steel if i remember correctly....and we don't know if Valyrian steel does anything to them Jon and Sam "assumed" that the annals were speaking of Valyrian steal when it spoke of "Dragonsteel" which in itself seems odd for obvious reasons.

Secondly,i respect your "opinion" but again why would the wws create their swords to be vulnerable to Obsidian the very thing they themselves are vulnerable too? You still haven't answered that,its conceptually problematic.Your opinion isn't inaccurate, its your opinion( i don't even know why the arguement about opinion is even relevent). I'm just saying for the sake of a debate logically it doesn't jive.

Next,given Ser Pudles annoyed knocking away of Grenn's torch i'm not quick to say they are "dismayed" by fire.

Lastly, Obsidian armour would only serve as a defense,unless Jon hugs it or something.Which goes back to my inital query on why one would make a sword that is vulnerable to the substance you yourself are vulnerable to?

The reason I didn't answer it is I didn't understand your question. The above statement made it clearer what you meant.

As for why would they make the swords out of the same substance that they are made of, it appears that the Others only have the one substance to work with, some kind of crazy strong ice.

Lastly, if the Other's Swords cut through ringmail like silk, the idea is that obsidian armor would keep the other's icy swords from penetrating it.

It's not enough to have a sword capable of defeating them, if they can still cut through your armor like you're wearing nothing but silk.

[redriver]

No you're right. Tower of Joy, I made a boneheaded mistake. :-p

I think we can find it in our hearts to forgive you.

[Melifeather]

Wait...what?

[The Snowfyre Chorus]

:agree:

[Melifeather]

Why is it so easy for people to understand Jon 's dream about black armor to be a dream and they dismiss Ned's fever dream as a dream? The account of the Tower of Joy was Ned's dream and my argument is that it was only a dream and not to be taken as fact .

[wolfmaid7]

On a different tangent, the reincarnation theory had me thinking that what if warging an dragon bonding are almost total opposites. In warging, the human or singer forces his will or spirit upon the animal, tree or what have you. Though, in dragon bonding the dragon has to choose you for undisclosed reasons. It's frequently written that the heart of a dragon can never be fully understood, during warging the others presence can be felt by the warg. Exemplified by Bran conversating with Hodor and reassuring him not to be scared. So the heart of a warged creature can be understood and perhaps the heart (or nature) of a dragon would be better known if warging had ever occured.

You could even look at how the Starks have wolf dreams and the Targs have prophetic dreams. The prophetic Targaryen dreams often include the presence a dragon in them. Wolf dreams are basically involuntary warging but what if Targaryen prophetic dreams are dragon's having a Targ dream in effect. Like the dragon is warging the Targaryen having said dream. Food for thought, I'm just throwing stuff out there.

I would agree and disagree with this by saying Dragonbonding and the Wolfbond in essense are the same thing.As you pointed out and i will add there are similarities between Dragondreams and Wolfdreams and there is evidence that like the Dragons the Direwolves also choose to bond with their proxies. This is not the same with regular Skinchanging where a person like v6 is taught to "take"an animal and break its will.

The reason I didn't answer it is I didn't understand your question. The above statement made it clearer what you meant.

As for why would they make the swords out of the same substance that they are made of, it appears that the Others only have the one substance to work with, some kind of crazy strong ice.

Lastly, if the Other's Swords cut through ringmail like silk, the idea is that obsidian armor would keep the other's icy swords from penetrating it.

It's not enough to have a sword capable of defeating them, if they can still cut through your armor like you're wearing nothing but silk.

Firstly, the bolded is not what i asked so a bit of a clarification is needed.If you read my post i asked why would the swords be made with the "same vulnerability as the wws" not the "same substance".Meaning why make swords vulnerable to Obsidian when you yourself are vulnerable to Obsidian?

Lets say a suppossed Obsidian armor would keep a wws sword from stabbing or slashing,the impact of any blow to that armor would render that to splinters.

[TheTowerOfJoy]

It's an interesting topic in that ser Waymers sword is indeed castle forged steel but I'm also going to assume that his armour is also castle forged steel. Neither proved any use against the swords ( whatever they are made of) of the WWs. If we use ser Waymers kit as an example then it could be possible that whatever their swords are made of could also be used for the WWs armour also. Now we know that obsidian is effective in neutralising wws so I think it is a possibility that obsidian armour may be effective against whatever it is that the wws swords are made of. Clear as mud .. No???

I also read the ser puddles knocking away Grenns torch as more of a confirmation that they are not comfortable with fire being around which then makes sense in johns dream that he would have an obsidian sword on fire as wws aren't keen on both( with the added bonus that fire kills wights)

I suspect that obsidian is a vital ingredient in Valyrian Steel. We know that Glass Candles (made of obsidian) can burn without being consumed, so I think that if you like a Valyrian Steel sword with the same blood trick used by Thoros and Beric, that it will burn without being consumed.

Dragonsteel is the substance that we were told that the Last Hero used against the White Walkers. And then we have the story of Azor Ahai forging Lightbringer. where the first two attempts caused the sword to shatter (obsidian, being brittle could certainly be a reason for it to shatter). Azor Ahai used Nissa Nissa's heart to temper the blade. I believe that the blade he created was the first pre-decessor of Valyrian Steel. The Valyrians cracked the stories and prophecies and perfected it's forging. My best guess is that it requires blood to temper it, and this was likely at least one of the purposes of the slaves.

[TheTowerOfJoy]

It's already gone off. This is an eleven act play, apparently, so it went off well before the last act. Daenerys had a miscarriage after eating the poison berries in the Dothraki Sea at the end of A Dance with Dragons. Hidzahr and/or Fabio Naharis would be so disappointed to learn of it. Her womb has quickened, so something big should be coming. However, she has to spend the next book hanging with her buddies in the Dothraki hordes.

Certainly her womb quickened already, my point was that her womb quickening obviously implies she will birth another child.

As for the Dothraki, certainly she seems headed for Vaes Dothrak, which is I believe the birthplace of the First Men.

[TheTowerOfJoy]

http://web.archive.o...s3/00103009.htm

Shaw: Is there a certain reason why they named obsidian "dragonglass" or why you did that?

Martin: Yes, there is a reason.

Shaw: Are dragons somehow the mortal enemy of the Others?

Martin: There are a lot of legends, and you'll be hearing more about them in the future books, but a lot of stuff about Others and about dragons maybe isn't completely understood by the people of the present. Obsidian is of course volcanic glass; it's formed by immense heat and pressure down in the earth. The dragons themselves are creatures of intense heat.

Shaw: Do you know what substance an Other sword is made from.

Martin: Ice. But not like regular old ice. The Others can do things with ice that we can't imagine and make substances of it. ______________________________________________

This may be of relevance to last night's discussion.

Very much so. And thus dragonsteel possibly being the combination of iron and obsidian, tempered with blood and magic.

[TheTowerOfJoy]

I'm glad you just quoted this part. There was a discussion earlier in the thread about whether the Wall stops the Others. I doubt that the Wall stops the Others from passing because I think that one of the fantastic things that we can't imagine is that the Others constructed the Wall. Therefore, unless they placed magic spells on the Wall to prevent their own passage, then I doubt that the Wall would stop them. Rather than stop the Others, the Wall marks a boundary, one that the Others have previously decided not to cross, except during the Long Night.

Now the wights may be a different matter.

Agreed. I think the Wall was created by Men, the Children, and the Others as a line of demarcation. Perhaps that agreement has been broken though, and the Others are scheming to bring it down, because it does keep them from marching their army of Wights through it due to the same spell binding that we saw at the Cave of Skulls.

[TheTowerOfJoy]

Valerian steel is spoken of as spell forged steel. It doesn't say what spells are used, but the Wall was built using spells as well. If all the spells do is strengthen nearby magic and/or weaken the Others then they would be, in theory, able to receive more damage near the wall.

Damascus steel world be a real world equivalent to valerian steel. Forging technique made for stronger carbon bonds and even had the waves shown in the book. Was stronger and more flexible than other steel forged in the same time frame.

One option as to why obsidian would possibly work is in a scale mail set up. The Others swords may be made of a crystalline set up. If the Others are able to craft using there own magic then weapons they make would have somewhat the same failure rate as there own armour.

In the first sword fight shown between Royce and a Other, Royce's sword held up for a time before being cut through. If a others sword magic losses strength at the wall while at the same time spell forged steel gets stronger, the playing field should be levelled.

Also frozen fire scale mail, TM pending, with a underling of NW armour should level the playing field more so.

As to fire, it has be proven that if it's to cold even a fire will got out. While the WW, undead types, fire kills them.

We're on the same page. I even suggest obsidian scale mail before, which would look kind of like a black dragon's scales :)

[TheTowerOfJoy]

Nah, Jon saw himself wearing armour of black ice. Simple as that. Remember that when he had that dream he had already been led to the dragonglass cache below the Fist and he already knew what it could do. If he had been wearing dragonglass armour in his dream he would have known it was dragonglass, not ice.

As I said earlier in a dream as full as symbolism as that one its futile trying to rationalise it. He saw himself armoured in ice because that's where he's headed even if kicking and screaming.

As to Ser Waymar, again no. The First Walker was just sizing him up before making his move. Obsidian/Dragonglass is too brittle to make a sword. The stuff Jon found at the Fist was typical in being arrowheads and daggers/spearheads, nothing bigger. For that you need to look at the Pre-Columbian Americans and their flat wooden clubs with pieces of obsidian set into the edge.

Or some sort of process by which iron and obsidian are melded into a different material... say dragonsteel.

[The Snowfyre Chorus]

I suspect that obsidian is a vital ingredient in Valyrian Steel. We know that Glass Candles (made of obsidian) can burn without being consumed, so I think that if you like a Valyrian Steel sword with the same blood trick used by Thoros and Beric, that it will burn without being consumed.

Dragonsteel is the substance that we were told that the Last Hero used against the White Walkers. And then we have the story of Azor Ahai forging Lightbringer. where the first two attempts caused the sword to shatter (obsidian, being brittle could certainly be a reason for it to shatter). Azor Ahai used Nissa Nissa's heart to temper the blade. I believe that the blade he created was the first pre-decessor of Valyrian Steel. The Valyrians cracked the stories and prophecies and perfected it's forging. My best guess is that it requires blood to temper it, and this was likely at least one of the purposes of the slaves.

Certainly her womb quickened already, my point was that her womb quickening obviously implies she will birth another child.

As for the Dothraki, certainly she seems headed for Vaes Dothrak, which is I believe the birthplace of the First Men.

Very much so. And thus dragonsteel possibly being the combination of iron and obsidian, tempered with blood and magic.

Agreed. I think the Wall was created by Men, the Children, and the Others as a line of demarcation. Perhaps that agreement has been broken though, and the Others are scheming to bring it down, because it does keep them from marching their army of Wights through it due to the same spell binding that we saw at the Cave of Skulls.

We're on the same page. I even suggest obsidian scale mail before, which would look kind of like a black dragon's scales :)

Or some sort of process by which iron and obsidian are melded into a different material... say dragonsteel.

Hey, TheTower - you ever noticed that button in the lower right corner that says "MultiQuote"?

That button is there for you. ;)

.

[TheTowerOfJoy]

I think GRRM has dropped hints about reincarnation especially among the Targaryens (for example I wonder if it is coincidence that Rhaegar is born on the day of Aegon V's death at Summerhall, and how Rhaegar's death may synch up with Dany's conception). After all we know that dragons frequently change gender. Do we have a Dragon moving from life to life from Aegon V to Rhaegar to Daenaerys?

Very nice, especially if Dany dies giving birth to a son as I suspect she will in the very end.

[Phillip Frye]

I suspect that obsidian is a vital ingredient in Valyrian Steel. We know that Glass Candles (made of obsidian) can burn without being consumed, so I think that if you like a Valyrian Steel sword with the same blood trick used by Thoros and Beric, that it will burn without being consumed.

Dragonsteel is the substance that we were told that the Last Hero used against the White Walkers. And then we have the story of Azor Ahai forging Lightbringer. where the first two attempts caused the sword to shatter (obsidian, being brittle could certainly be a reason for it to shatter). Azor Ahai used Nissa Nissa's heart to temper the blade. I believe that the blade he created was the first pre-decessor of Valyrian Steel. The Valyrians cracked the stories and prophecies and perfected it's forging. My best guess is that it requires blood to temper it, and this was likely at least one of the purposes of the slaves.

I think that you have nailed the ingredients. I never considered obsidian before, but the Valyrians would have had plenty on hand. I think that one reason that the secret of making Valyrian steel has been lost is because the spells used to bind the human sacrifice to the sword have been lost. While human sacrifice to create a sword would be repugnant in Westeros, it would bother no one in Slaver's Bay or the Dothraki Sea (or history's greatest bastards--the Valyrians). In fact, I don't think that any Valyrian steel swords were ever created in Westeros. Presumably, they all came from Valyria, and the Westerosi customers never asked too many questions about their forging.

However, the blood of slaves was probably not the source of the human sacrifice involved in making Valyrian steel. The Valyrians had hordes of slaves, and they would have had little compunction in sacrificing them to create an unlimited number of unbeatable swords. However, Valyrian steel swords are extremely rare, rare enough that a list could be made of all of the known ones.

Instead, as with Nissa Nissa, someone valuable had to die to create a Valyrian steel blade. I imagine that the someone who died would have belonged to one of the Forty Families to create such a magnificent sword. This may also explain why no further Valyrian steel blades have been created. People have forgotten whose blood must be spilled, and no king has thought to sacrifice a member of his own family to create a sword.