Heresy 128

[Phillip Frye]

Hi, I'm new to heresy, found the threads rather interesting and overwhelming.

If this is already discussed, please give some link.

In the Theon chapter where he hears Bran calling his name, "for one moment it seemed as if it was Bran's face staring out the tree" or something like that. Arya remembers "the heart tree with its scary face" in one of her chapters. Could the face of the tree change depending on the greenseer looking through it? Or was Theon simply imagining Bran's face in his half delirious state?

"The trees have eyes again." -- Qhorin Halfhand.

I think that the eerie sense that Ayra gets of being watched is because she is being watched. The question is by whom. I am also a proponent that Bran can communicate through the weirwoods, particularly with Theon. The real interesting question is whether he will become SuperBran, talking to people in the past.

People have speculated in past threads that the Theon chapter following the sample chapter from Winds of Winter may feature a spectacular display of this communication, proving that Theon never killed Bran when Bran speaks to all of those assembled for Theon's execution--or he'll just drink Theon's blood through the tree roots--it's all the same to me.

The earlier discussion is whether the weirwoods will rear up and lay some smack on the enemies of the Children of the Forest. With one notable exception (the theory's proponent), the consensus is that we won't see that happen.

[lokisnow]

Theon is gollum he can't die until the climax.

[Bog Devil of Greywater]

"The trees have eyes again." -- Qhorin Halfhand.

I think that the eerie sense that Ayra gets of being watched is because she is being watched. The question is by whom. I am also a proponent that Bran can communicate through the weirwoods, particularly with Theon. The real interesting question is whether he will become SuperBran, talking to people in the past.

People have speculated in past threads that the Theon chapter following the sample chapter from Winds of Winter may feature a spectacular display of this communication, proving that Theon never killed Bran when Bran speaks to all of those assembled for Theon's execution--or he'll just drink Theon's blood through the tree roots--it's all the same to me.

The earlier discussion is whether the weirwoods will rear up and lay some smack on the enemies of the Children of the Forest. With one notable exception (the theory's proponent), the consensus is that we won't see that happen.

Halfhand is a very interesting character when you do a re-read of the series. He absolutely pegs Jon as a warg within a couple of days, and realizes that magic is coming back into the world. He even sends one of his Rangers alone and on foot to let Mormont know about it.

He knew an awful lot before anyone else South of the Wall for a character seemingly developed to die for Jon's entry into the wildling Army.

[Phillip Frye]

Halfhand is a very interesting character when you do a re-read of the series. He absolutely pegs Jon as a warg within a couple of days, and realizes that magic is coming back into the world. He even sends one of his Rangers alone and on foot to let Mormont know about it.

He knew an awful lot before anyone else South of the Wall for a character seemingly developed to die for Jon's entry into the wildling Army.

It's an open question as to whether we will ever see Stonesnake again. If anyone could survive out there, he could. However, I don't think his sudden reappearance is likely unless he managed to locate Benjen. Otherwise, what would he bring to the story?

[Phillip Frye]

Theon is gollum he can't die until the climax.

I'm inclined to think that Theon will survive the series. He would be brought back to Pyke by his sister, who would use him to invalidate the previous Kingsmoot and then place him on the throne as her candidate. He would finally get to "rule" the Iron Islands, but his reign would be bittersweet because he would be unable to enjoy his previous occupations (archery and whoring), would spend his reign as a prematurely-aged sick man, and would be unable to have legitimate children (I wonder if his "royal bastard" from the Myraham will make a reappearance).

I see Theon as a survivor. He has survived so much already.

[wolfmaid7]

Hi, I'm new to heresy, found the threads rather interesting and overwhelming.

If this is already discussed, please give some link.

In the Theon chapter where he hears Bran calling his name, "for one moment it seemed as if it was Bran's face staring out the tree" or something like that. Arya remembers "the heart tree with its scary face" in one of her chapters. Could the face of the tree change depending on the greenseer looking through it? Or was Theon simply imagining Bran's face in his half delirious state?

I think in the case of Theon it was a combination of hearing Bran and being in front of the Heart tree which in turn brought up all these feelings.It doesn't hurt as you pointed out that Theon's mind was just all fracked up thus contributing to a visual of Bran's face.I do believe the experiance was facilitated by both Bran and Theon's state of mind,as no one saw or heard what he heard,so i guess that could count as a personal experiance.

Shrooms???

AtS, don't be a bogart. If your making tea, keep it. Last time I did that was in 1976 and damn near did not make it back from that debacle. Come to think of it, 1976 (maybe 75) is when I first read The Hobbit and LOTR.

Maybe I'm a greenseer now looking back at what I knew I was going to do and that I would see it now in the future...... :cool4:

Ah lol Mushrooms of the mind altering nature.

"The trees have eyes again." -- Qhorin Halfhand.

I think that the eerie sense that Ayra gets of being watched is because she is being watched. The question is by whom. I am also a proponent that Bran can communicate through the weirwoods, particularly with Theon. The real interesting question is whether he will become SuperBran, talking to people in the past.

People have speculated in past threads that the Theon chapter following the sample chapter from Winds of Winter may feature a spectacular display of this communication, proving that Theon never killed Bran when Bran speaks to all of those assembled for Theon's execution--or he'll just drink Theon's blood through the tree roots--it's all the same to me.

The earlier discussion is whether the weirwoods will rear up and lay some smack on the enemies of the Children of the Forest. With one notable exception (the theory's proponent), the consensus is that we won't see that happen.

Dido :cheers:

[addicted to snow]

The earlier discussion is whether the weirwoods will rear up and lay some smack on the enemies of the Children of the Forest. With one notable exception (the theory's proponent), the consensus is that we won't see that happen.

A few points…

1. The Weir woods will not necessarily serve the CotF… According to Asha's Tale, it was the Greenseers who turned the trees into warriors, & as we have seen, greenseers are not necessarily CotF... "Greenseers turned the trees into warriors"

I also noted that the tale did not say 'Wood Dancers turned the trees into warriors'… Wood Dancers, as per Lewin were the fighting class of the CotF who were believed to have very effective camouflage… So, Again, "Greenseers turned the trees into warriors" does not imply Wood Dancers camouflaged as trees or brush… Like all the other clues that suggest that Weirwoods will animate as Magic continues to increase, I can't imagine why GRRM would have chosen the word Greenseers for Asha's tale if the trees were not in fact being animated…

Can anyone provide an alternate explanation as to how a immobile & remote Greenseer could turn a tree into a warrior???

There is nothing in the story supporting the existence of the Night's King besides ancient Tales, yet most readers believe that the Night's King did exist at one time & has possibly returned… Why then do readers & specifically board participants find the idea of "Greenseers turned the trees into warriors" (which is also supported by ancient Tales) to be so ludicrous?

Can anyone please offer why GRRM might have included this statement "Greenseers turned the trees into warriors" if it is not foreshadowing of some kind??? It certainly did not help make the case that Stannis & the Clanmen were well camouflaged...

[Phillip Frye]

The Weir woods will not necessarily serve the CotF… According to Asha's Tale, it was the Greenseers who turned the trees into warriors, & as we have seen, greenseers are not necessarily CotF... "Greenseers turned the trees into warriors"

Okay, the entire theory rests upon the folktale recollections of an Iron Islander, a place where no one worships the Old Gods and there are no live weirwoods.

I stand corrected then. The prediction is that the whomping weirwoods will lay some serious smack on the enemies of the Children of the Forest and/or their two captive human greenseers.

[alienarea]

Okay, the entire theory rests upon the folktale recollections of an Iron Islander, a place where no one worships the Old Gods and there are no live weirwoods.

I stand corrected then. The prediction is that the whomping weirwoods will lay some serious smack on the enemies of the Children of the Forest and/or their two captive human greenseers.

But Victarion has an axe.

[Phillip Frye]

But Victarion has an axe.

Better yet, he has a dragonbinding horn. Rhaegal could lay a lot of smack on those marching weirwoods.

[Phillip Frye]

I now see how the series will end. It is all so clear. Victarion, riding Rhaegal and blowing his horn, will fight an epic battle on the Trident against an army of whomping weirwoods, who have marched down from the north, controlled by Brandon Stark. At the last minute, when it appears that Westeros will be saved from this deciduous invasion, Victarion and Rhaegal suddenly fall into a sinkhole and are never seen again, which is the bittersweet ending.

[alienarea]

I now see how the series will end. It is all so clear. Victarion, riding Rhaegal and blowing his horn, will fight an epic battle on the Trident against an army of whomping weirwoods, who have marched down from the north, controlled by Brandon Stark. At the last minute, when it appears that Westeros will be saved by this deciduous invasion, Victarion and Rhaegal suddenly fall into a sinkhole and are never seen again, which is a bittersweet ending.

Oh, shit. You just figured it out.

[Phillip Frye]

Oh, shit. You just figured it out.

Martin should be paying me royalties.

[addicted to snow]

Okay, the entire theory rests upon the folktale recollections of an Iron Islander, a place where no one worships the Old Gods and there are no live weirwoods.

Not unlike Sam, growing up @ Horn Hill where there are no Others & where he worshiping the Seven, and yet he was told Tales of Others nonetheless...

[Phillip Frye]

Not unlike Sam, growing up @ Horn Hill where there are no Others & where he worshiping the Seven, and yet he was told Tales of Others nonetheless...

We'll just have to wait and see. It is important to note the unreliability of the details in the folktales, though, most of which were told by Old Nan within the story. We have yet to see maidens hunted (except by Ramsay Bolton), ice spiders, cold dead things feasting on the blood of victims, etc. It seems that we have a problem with the narrators of these folktales, or the folktales themselves. They are unreliable.

[Phillip Frye]

I guess that it would be nice if Bran used the weirwood on the island in the lake to smack fake Lightbringer from Stannis' hand. That would be alright.

[Black Crow]

Not unlike Sam, growing up @ Horn Hill where there are no Others & where he worshiping the Seven, and yet he was told Tales of Others nonetheless...

And the point about that is that while Old Nan, up in the North and near to where things do go bump in the night, talked about ice spiders big as hounds, by the time the scary story had reached all the way down to Horn Hill they had grown big enough to ride on.

Asha's laughter was precisely because she realised what her scary bedtime story was really about.

[Black Crow]

Halfhand is a very interesting character when you do a re-read of the series. He absolutely pegs Jon as a warg within a couple of days, and realizes that magic is coming back into the world. He even sends one of his Rangers alone and on foot to let Mormont know about it.

He knew an awful lot before anyone else South of the Wall for a character seemingly developed to die for Jon's entry into the wildling Army.

Indeed, and a lot of what he said wasn't relevant to inserting Jon into the Wildling host, or even to what they learned of that host through Jon's wolf dream. What's interesting is that he doesn't just send Stonesnake off to say "Zulus, Sir, fawsands of 'em", but warns that the Old Powers are wakening and the trees have eyes again, yet its not so long before that he was talking with Mormont himself about offing the Crowkiller and such-like with no mention of serious stuff - and nor do I recall his party coming across weirwoods, with or without eyes.

On a straightforward level there was no need to send Stonesnake off, he never made it through and might just as easily have been shot with an arrow at some point. So what's important here is that line about the Old Powers and the trees having eyes - and its a warning. Its not good.

[Black Crow]

"If the climbers reached the top of the Wall undetected, however, everything changed. Given time, they could carve out a toehold for themselves up there, throwing up ramparts of their own and dropping ropes and ladders for thousands more to clamber over after them. That was how Raymun Redbeard had done it." (ADwD, Jon 7)

But no way they're getting horses over!

ETA: I'm not so sure about Queenscrown having been the castle of the White Lady, but on the other hand we know from RL that humans are in the habit of building significant monuments and structures atop places that were significant to the cultures they displace. There could be shades of "Lady of the Lake" with the site (an island in a little lake). And isn't the weirwood at the village where Stannis is encamped also on an island in a lake?

Missed your ETA on account of going to bed, but its interesting that we get two examples in relatively close proximity of islands in lakes. I know that such things do exist in the real world, but in my part of it they are frequently crannogs, hence perhaps the causeway leading to the one at Queenscrown.

That being said, given the association to a queen, I rather suspect that the original inspiration for it is Loch Leven castle - a simple tower house on an island in the loch, easily visible from the main road north and famous for Mary Queen of Scots having been imprisoned and escaped from there.

[Jovet Hunter]

Hi, somewhat new to the forum so let me know if/where this may have been addressed before, yadda yadda...

I've been wondering about the long winter/night, the red comet, dragons, the WW, the arm of Dorn, the neck, Summerhall, and the source of magic. I have a bit of a theory, somewhat immature at the moment, that they are all connected.

So first, my evidence. I don't have the exact pages and such memorized, but if you need it, I'll look.

I don't remember specific mentions of the red comet having arrived before (other than at the tragedy of Summerhall/Rhegar's birth, I'll get to that). HOWEVER there has been a prediction that the red comet will herald AA/TPWWP, suggesting to me that it has visited before, prior to AA/TPWWP showing up.

In Quarth there is a legend of a second moon straying "too close to the sun" that caused it to crack and dragons came pouring out.

Now, Rhegar was born under a red comet. We know the more recent one is more memorable because people who were alive when Rhegar was born, don't look at the comet and say "oh yeah, we just saw that like 35 years ago." Either there are a lot of red celestial bodies in the solar system or it is the same object. One that has what seems to be an erratic, random orbit.

The COTF were said to have destroyed the arm of Dorn and the neck by summoning the "Hammer of the Waters"

So here is the theory:

The world of Ice and Fire had 2 moons, one very small. Some 10,000 years ago, a celestial tragedy occurred. Perhaps an asteroid or another comet or planetoid smashed into the moon. The bulk of it was launched into a vastly elliptical orbit: a 10,000 year orbit but crossing the planet's orbit twice in that period, 35-40 years apart. The rest rained down on the planet periodically, triggering a nuclear winter, volcanic eruptions, tidal waves. After a generation, the moon/comet swung back through, raining down more debris that filled the atmosphere, blocking the sun and resulting in the long night.

So something in the moon/comet would have some magical properties, which was delivered to planet in the disaster. In Asshai, this manifested as dragons and as WW in Westeros. Maybe even Krackens in the ocean. The planet, meanwhile, was infused with magic which was accessible by humans. The magic, though, eventually faded and was "used up" and so went the dragons, WW, Krackens, and all but the most basic powers (usually requiring a very heavy price, blood sacrifice).

So someone figured this out at some point. Maybe a rogue maester, or a Targaryan. Maybe the comet has a much shorter than 10,000 year orbit, but doesn't come extremely close but once in a long while (and could have caused such tragedies as the Doom or Hardholm). Someone connected to the Targs figured this out, and when the comet came through when Rhegar was born, tried to unsuccessfully resurrect magic and the dragons. Maybe the planet passed through a cloud up north which "reseeded" the planet a bit and woke up the WW, wargs, and such. When it passed a generation later, it was closer and enabled the birth of dragons. Doesn't someone mention them waking in Asshai?

Crazy?