Heresy 132 The Wildlings

[Phillip Frye]

Also considering the way that GRRM writes, if Craster were in fact a "Sin Eater", would not GRRM have introduced the idea to the reader at some point?

Haven't you mentioned that Martin likes to keep his clues and Easter eggs obscure? He doesn't show us directly what his influences were, we have to go find them.

The closest that Martin has directly referenced Celtic mythology is the three female aspects of the Seven and House Morrigan with its crow sigil. You have to go out and learn about Cu Chulainn and Bran the Blessed yourself to try and figure out where he might be headed.

As for being a sin eater, Craster meets the criteria of what a sin eater is. He is well fed, taking upon himself the spiritual burdens of others (the heavy curse) while being despised by them. Despite the incest and child sacrifice, no one molests his "Keep", even though it would fall over if hit by a cow fart.

[Black Crow]

My Impression was that Qyburn told Cersei that he once encountered an invisible woman… He could not see her, but could smell her perfume & see the depression in the cushions of the chair where she supposedly sat...

I'd also say it smacks more of Sherlock Holmes, ie; Qyburn was able to tell that there had been a woman present because of the traces she she had left behind even though he hadn't actually bumped into her.

[and just by the by the fish curers at Craster are called Robson - a common Northumbrian name - not Robinson]

[Black Crow]

Haven't you mentioned that Martin likes to keep his clues and Easter eggs obscure? He doesn't show us directly what his influences were, we have to go find them.

The closest that Martin has directly referenced Celtic mythology is the three female aspects of the Seven and House Morrigan with its crow sigil. You have to go out and learn about Cu Chulainn and Bran the Blessed yourself to try and figure out where he might be headed.

As for being a sin eater, Craster meets the criteria of what a sin eater is. He is well fed, taking upon himself the spiritual burdens of others (the heavy curse) while being despised by them. Despite the incest and child sacrifice, no one molests his "Keep", even though it would fall over if hit by a cow fart.

Exactly so. Craster undoubtedly displays all the criteria of a sin eater, but naming him as such would rather give the game away.

Just as a by the by on that one, I did refer to the whole purpose of Craster's Keep as being the production of boy children to offer to the cold gods. We know that in due season he marries his daughters, but there's no sign of a clan mother - an original wife whose daughters they are - and I'd be inclined to wonder whether all of Craster's wives are his daughters or whether some are widows or wallflowers coming from outside, willingly or otherwise, like the crones of Vaes Dothrak in order to speed the plough

[Black Crow]

We've discussed before that the "terrible half-human children" are probably skinchangers. Is it the wildling women that are needed to produce the skinchangers, or is it the Others that are needed? Sounds like the classic which came first, the chicken or the egg? I posted many threads ago that it is in fact the egg that came first since when it comes to evolution the chicken is a species that evolved from a mutation in the DNA of another animal that helped create the egg that became the first chicken. So was it the Others combined with the wildling women that created the mutation that became the first skinchanger? I think this is getting into Snowfyre's area of expertise.

I think that one's straightforward enough and that its whoever did the impregnating first time around that inserted that gene into the human bloodline. Whether the gene is a dominant one or whether it needs a nudge now and again is probably a more interesting question.

[TheButcherCrow]

Exactly so. Craster undoubtedly displays all the criteria of a sin eater, but naming him as such would rather give the game away.

Just as a by the by on that one, I did refer to the whole purpose of Craster's Keep as being the production of boy children to offer to the cold gods. We know that in due season he marries his daughters, but there's no sign of a clan mother - an original wife whose daughters they are - and I'd be inclined to wonder whether all of Craster's wives are his daughters or whether some are widows or wallflowers coming from outside, willingly or otherwise, like the crones of Vaes Dothrak in order to speed the plough

On that note BC, the quote in your sig is somewhat suggestive of that very circumstance. The "old woman on the left" is very particular about saying "Craster's sons" (not "our sons") and again, "the sons". Now whether this is just that thing parents do when a kid is being a pain, many a time when I was younger would I hear my mother exclaim, "Charlie, look at what your son has done !!", although this would be amusing, I suspect GRRM had a more particular meaning in mind when he chose to use the phrase "Craster's sons". For my money, I wouldn't put it out of the realms of possibility that the "the old woman on the left" was Craster's mother and possibly first wife :dunno:

[King of Winters]

This makes no sense, In my opinion...

• If Mel wants his body to give it the kiss of life, then the body is dead...
• If Val wants the body to protect it while Jon is Warging, then the body must be alive...

Well, the body is either alive or dead, so the scenario you suggest is not likely to happen...

Could Mels not mistake Jon for being dead? And that's why Val is also protecting him, because she knows that Mels will likely harm him by doing the kiss of life.

[King of Winters]

I've often joked on this forum that ASOIAF Jon Snow is Jon Snow 2.0 while the Night's King is Jon Snow 1.0. However, I wonder if only part of the name makes Ygritte flinch, specifically the last name Snow. It seems that she is withholding something obvious from Jon Snow in that she emphasizes his name when she repeatedly tells him that he knows nothing.

In the books, we see the strange respect that the wildlings have for the Starks. Apparently, Stark is not an evil name to the wildlings, but Snow seems to be. Perhaps the Starks are held in reverence while the Snows are cursed. The Starks are Kings of Winter. Of what would the Snows be kings?

Perhaps the Starks were TSIW and the Snows were the Nights Kings.

[aDanceWithFlagons]

Snow as the name of the NK sounds reasonable. An alternative is that was the name of an awful skinchanger. One that terrorized the Wildlings in the past. Well, I think I might be speaking of the same person.

What would happen at the Black Gate if the answer given to "who are you" is unsatisfactory? Most likely one could not pass through the gate. Mayhaps one could pass through with dire consequences. Coming back round to the Horn, I think it likely is a way to bypass the Gate. The horn could reproduce the answer to "who are you" in song.

If you blow the horn at the wall, what comes out is essentially 'Mayhaps I am the watcher on the walls. I am the fire that burns against the cold, the light that brings the dawn, the horn that wakes the sleepers. I am the shield that guards the realms of men

I think the Horned Lord reproduced the sorcery of the Horn to pass through the Black Gate when he brought the Wildlings south.

[The Free Folk]

I like it. These topics intersect and blend together some, so I don't mind giving away a bit of my upcoming piece on the weirwoods - in particular, the observation that weirwoods themselves are several times described as "giants." The Black Gate is an especially interesting example there - as it is quite the largest weirwood face we see, and it is wakened by Samwell Tarly - a brother of the NW, and (among other things) "the horn that wakes the sleepers..."

Oh I like this! I've been trying to find more connections between the giants and Children and this fits beautifully - can't wait to read the essay.

My Impression was that Qyburn told Cersei that he once encountered an invisible woman… He could not see her, but could smell her perfume & see the depression in the cushions of the chair where she supposedly sat...

Small correction, though mostly unimportant: it was Jaime that Qyburn tells this too (Jaime VI, SOS). What interests me about this dialogue, though way off-topic from our current discussion, is that Jaime asks Qyburn if he believes in ghosts after his really strange weirwood dream that I have no idea what to make of.

[Hrafntýr]

I like it. These topics intersect and blend together some, so I don't mind giving away a bit of my upcoming piece on the weirwoods - in particular, the observation that weirwoods themselves are several times described as "giants." The Black Gate is an especially interesting example there - as it is quite the largest weirwood face we see, and it is wakened by Samwell Tarly - a brother of the NW, and (among other things) "the horn that wakes the sleepers..."

Excellent, Snowfyre Chorus! This is a theory that I've speculated on in the past, that there are "dormant" weirwood root systems that are the "sleeping giants" to be wakened by the Horn. It would be a sort of rhizomatic propagation, but with a magical element that has allowed the rhizomes to be dormant for a very long period of time. The young weirwood at the Whispers suggests the possibility of weirwoods springing forth after some period of dormancy.

<snip>

Most Heretics know that I am a proponent of Rhaegar to not being Jon's father, and your paragraph above only highlights how Rhaegar does not fit! Rhaegar was not a wildling so he doesn't fit the traditional Bael the Bard role. Yes, Lyanna has the matriarchal bloodline of the Starks, but the grafting has to come from a wildling father to mutate the skinchanging gene. Rhaegar would dilute the bloodline and no mutation would occur. If Rhaegar is the father, then there is a deliberate interception being done by the Targaryens and we should be looking for links to Bloodraven, Varys, Jon Con, and Illyrio and theorize why the Children have allied with them. Why would they want to sever the grafting of the wildlings to the Starks? It's the wildling blood that awakens the skinchanging in Starks, so if Rhaegar is Jon's father then Jon shouldn't be a warg/skinchanger.

Edited to highlight Wolfmaid's quotes in blue. :cool4:

I intentionally substituited the R for X because either way it works.Jon already has the matriarchial birthright that meant he would have been a Skinchanger anyway because of her and attained the magical nobility that comes with it.However the Targ blood would add another component if somebody else wants to capitlize on that line and subvert their prophecy which is basically their birthright it falls in line.If Rheagar is the father it works.If Mance is his father and he's a relic from the war of the Nine Penny Kings it works.If it's Mance and he's nothing more than a Wildling it works because its a repeat Bael and Brandon's daughter.Three way its a win win.

I think Wolfmaid's interpretation here is a good one. And I disagree with the majority of posters who seem to think that Jenny's woods witch/GoHH is not one of the Children; I think she is, and that people see what they want to see, an extremely aged, tiny, withered woman. That she has red eyes allows her to be a greenseer among the Children as well as doing away with the obvious "tell" of golden eyes slitted like a cat's! As for claws, again, I think that the twisted, rheumatic hands of an old woman would be what people see, simply because that's what they assume she is. I do think that we are supposed to think that the Children have for some purpose of their own meddled in the Targ bloodline

I've often joked on this forum that ASOIAF Jon Snow is Jon Snow 2.0 while the Night's King is Jon Snow 1.0. However, I wonder if only part of the name makes Ygritte flinch, specifically the last name Snow. It seems that she is withholding something obvious from Jon Snow in that she emphasizes his name when she repeatedly tells him that he knows nothing.

In the books, we see the strange respect that the wildlings have for the Starks. Apparently, Stark is not an evil name to the wildlings, but Snow seems to be. Perhaps the Starks are held in reverence while the Snows are cursed. The Starks are Kings of Winter. Of what would the Snows be kings?

Agree 100%. And Night's King seems like a contender for the role of Snow. Though sometimes I wonder about whether the Starks are, in fact, Kings of Winter, given Osha's comment to Bran, "Winters got no king. If you'd seen it, you'd know that, summer boy." This is when they are in the crypts, and Bran refers to the older Starks as Kings of Winter. Still, I think we've seen the Starks referred to as Kings of Winter enough to take that equation as solid; thus, Snow as Night's King seems like a good hypothesis.

Did Roose know he was taking away Ramsay's possible inheritance when he acceded to legitimizing him as a Bolton, so that he was no longer a Snow?

I don't think that Bloodraven is involved in fathering Craster. The connection is between the Starks and Winter, not the Blackwoods and Winter.

Regarding Mance being Craster's son, have you considered the alternative that Val and Dalla were sired by Craster upon a woods witch?

It's probably not important, but I've been slightly fixated upon the "Melantha Blackwood" that appears on the WoIaF Stark family tree as Rickard's grandmother (thus Lyanna's great-grandmother). I can't help but to wonder what her relationship to Melissa, and Bloodraven, might be. This doesn't really impact what you're saying here, with which I agree. And the Melantha Blackwood thing is probably not important...unless she were the pregnant woman in Bran's vision.

Exactly so. Craster undoubtedly displays all the criteria of a sin eater, but naming him as such would rather give the game away.

Just as a by the by on that one, I did refer to the whole purpose of Craster's Keep as being the production of boy children to offer to the cold gods. We know that in due season he marries his daughters, but there's no sign of a clan mother - an original wife whose daughters they are - and I'd be inclined to wonder whether all of Craster's wives are his daughters or whether some are widows or wallflowers coming from outside, willingly or otherwise, like the crones of Vaes Dothrak in order to speed the plough

ASoS, Samwell II: "Some were old and some were young and some were only girls, but a lot of them were Craster's daughters as well as his wives, and they all looked sort of alike." This could be taken to suggest that some of the wives are not Craster's daughters (though it could also simply refer to daughters who were not yet old enough to be wives). But there are more old women than just the one, Sam refers to "two..haggard old women" only one of which is she of "Craster's sons"fame. I could swear that in the long Red Herring debate, in which there was much discussion of maternal and infant mortality figures, we had some good evidence from the books to suggest that some of Craster's wives were not his daughters, but I'll be damned if I can find it now, even though I've searched.

[Melifeather]

I've often joked on this forum that ASOIAF Jon Snow is Jon Snow 2.0 while the Night's King is Jon Snow 1.0. However, I wonder if only part of the name makes Ygritte flinch, specifically the last name Snow. It seems that she is withholding something obvious from Jon Snow in that she emphasizes his name when she repeatedly tells him that he knows nothing.

In the books, we see the strange respect that the wildlings have for the Starks. Apparently, Stark is not an evil name to the wildlings, but Snow seems to be. Perhaps the Starks are held in reverence while the Snows are cursed. The Starks are Kings of Winter. Of what would the Snows be kings?

Perhaps the Starks were TSIW and the Snows were the Nights Kings.

I am in agreement with those that suspect the Nights King was a Snow. Now whether he was a Stark bastard or a Bolton bastard, I'm leaning towards a Bolton bastard. Furthermore, I am beginning to suspect that the lower levels of the crypts of Winterfell do not contain Starks, but Boltons.

[The Free Folk]

I am in agreement with those that suspect the Nights King was a Snow. Now whether he was a Stark bastard or a Bolton bastard, I'm leaning towards a Bolton bastard. Furthermore, I am beginning to suspect that the lower levels of the crypts of Winterfell do not contain Starks, but Boltons.

I like the idea that butterbumps has been pushing that the Night's King was both a Stark and the start of the Bolton line through his offspring with the white woman. Now an interesting question that just arose is whether that offspring Bolton was at first a Snow? If the pre-Night's King Watch or men on the Wall weren't taking wives or children, then that would be technically a Snow which would be interesting in that the Bolton line is essentially a bastard branch of the Starks. Don't know what the implications of that are, but interesting nonetheless.

[Melifeather]

I like the idea that butterbumps has been pushing that the Night's King was both a Stark and the start of the Bolton line through his offspring with the white woman. Now an interesting question that just arose is whether that offspring Bolton was at first a Snow? If the pre-Night's King Watch or men on the Wall weren't taking wives or children, then that would be technically a Snow which would be interesting in that the Bolton line is essentially a bastard branch of the Starks. Don't know what the implications of that are, but interesting nonetheless.

Yes, this is exactly what I am thinking. And Ramsay's assertion that he is the "trueborn" heir of Winterfell is our red flag.

[Peruvian]

Did Roose know he was taking away Ramsay's possible inheritance when he acceded to legitimizing him as a Bolton, so that he was no longer a Snow?

"Magic" inheritance would be affected by a piece of paper saying he is a bastard no more?

[The Free Folk]

Yes, this is exactly what I am thinking. And Ramsay's assertion that he is the "trueborn" heir of Winterfell is our red flag.

Yes I agree with that. And it explains the long historical conflict between the Boltons and the Starks. I think the Last Hero was a Stark who was tought the old powers by the Children, using them to solidify the Starks as the powerful First Men family, and the current crop of Starks will need to re-learn the Old ways or else bow down to their distant cousins, the Boltons.

Now bringing it back on topic with the discussion of the free folk, I'm starting to agree with the above posters that the Night's King was a Snow. The fact that the free folk allied with the Stark in Winterfell in the overthrow of the Night's King and the spearwives' reverance for the Stark(s) in Winterfell makes me think that the Night's King overthrow was Stark (plus wildlings) vs. Snow, hence Ygritte's reaction to Jon Snow's name. This also is convincing me more and more that the free folk are imprisoned north of the Wall as the prey of the white shadows, and this is why they would ally with the Stark in Winterfell.

[Melifeather]

Yes I agree with that. And it explains the long historical conflict between the Boltons and the Starks. I think the Last Hero was a Stark who was tought the old powers by the Children, using them to solidify the Starks as the powerful First Men family, and the current crop of Starks will need to re-learn the Old ways or else bow down to their distant cousins, the Boltons.

Now bringing it back on topic with the discussion of the free folk, I'm starting to agree with the above posters that the Night's King was a Snow. The fact that the free folk allied with the Stark in Winterfell in the overthrow of the Night's King and the spearwives' reverance for the Stark(s) in Winterfell makes me think that the Night's King overthrow was Stark (plus wildlings) vs. Snow, hence Ygritte's reaction to Jon Snow's name. This also is convincing me more and more that the free folk are imprisoned north of the Wall as the prey of the white shadows, and this is why they would ally with the Stark in Winterfell.

Generally in agreement here...

To expand, the Stark role was to bring the Bolton line to heel that's why I think the Boltons are in the lower levels warded with iron. The Starks made winter fall and Winterfell is where it happened. Having Roose and Ramsay there now is setting winter free.

[Melifeather]

Generally in agreement here...

To expand, the Stark role was to bring the Bolton line to heel that's why I think the Boltons are in the lower levels warded with iron. The Starks made winter fall and Winterfell is where it happened. Having Roose and Ramsay there now is setting winter free.

I'd like to revise this statement and say the Stark's role is to bring the Bolton's bastard to heel. Ramsay is too, after all a Snow. Stark Snow vs Bolton Snow. hmmm

[Hrafntýr]

"Magic" inheritance would be affected by a piece of paper saying he is a bastard no more?

It was kind of a joke, which is to say I agree that the piece of paper means nothing. Indeed, the positioning of this Snow as the "trueborn heir of Winterfell" seems to be a magical trigger, as per redriver's "Winterfell" theory.

ETA: Though I do wonder what Roose does or doesn't know about the magics of Winter. I wonder endlessly.

[King of Winters]

It was kind of a joke, which is to say I agree that the piece of paper means nothing. Indeed, the positioning of this Snow as the "trueborn heir of Winterfell" seems to be a magical trigger, as per redriver's "Winterfell" theory.

ETA: Though I do wonder what Roose does or doesn't know about the magics of Winter. I wonder endlessly.

There is that book he burnt in Harrenhal. Though I hope he's mainly to do with the Game and not the Song.

[Black Crow]

For the record I'd like to say that I'm thoroughly convinced by the argument that the Boltons are Starks via the Nights King.

Old Nan offers a number of possible candidates for the Nights King, including a Bolton, before declaring he was a Stark, born in Winterfell and brother to Stark of Winterfell. That however is not to prevent his being a bastard brother - and after all notwithstanding his bastardy Maester Aemon declares our Jon Snow to be a son of Winterfell.

We're never given an explanation of Ygritte's reaction that Jon Snow is an evil name, but the fact that none of the other Wildlings allude to this suggests that its not current or at least widespread knowledge but old knowledge like the stuff passed down by Osha's mother and her mother before her and so on back.

That would in turn point to the Wildlings - or at least some of them, ie; the clan mothers and the like - remembering who the Nights King really was, and that in turn obviously raises questions as to what else they know.

Ultimately, this I think may be the more useful side of this current thread; not so much discussing their society and customs, but what they know and can tell us about what's going on. They have no Rodrik the Reader or Hoster Blackwood to grab Jon Snow by the sleeve do the ancient mariner bit, but Gilly isn't the only Wildling who hasn't been questioned as closely as she should have been so what we need to be doing is collating and distilling those few clues which GRRM has allowed them to give us.