Heresy 133 The Weirwoods

[Phillip Frye]

Let me leave you with this paraphrase:

The weirwood knows the gate. The weirwood is the gate. The weirwood is the key and guardian of the gate. Past, present, future, all are one in the weirwood. The weirwood knows where the old gods broke through of old, and where they shall break through again. The weirwood knows where the old gods have trod earth's fields, and where they still tread them, and why no one can behold them as they tread.

[Black Crow]

I think that it's a bit more likely that the faces were simply carved into these trees...

If your theory was correct, then ever tree in Westeros that someone had died before would have a face… & we have seen no evidence that this is the case...

The passage is certainly an ambiguous one with a clear implication that the trees have indeed been carved and very recently by the newly "assimilated" Wildlings, keeping to the old ways, notwithstanding a conspicuous absence of actual weirwoods. Yet what makes Jon uneasy is not that the faces have been carved, but that they have been carved to "watch" the roads from the south, which rather suggests that there is a specific purpose to them and that they are indeed live so to speak.

This might in turn suggest that while weirwoods are the mother trees, for lack of a better description, others - including but not confined to the oak, ash and bitter thorn - may be used in extremis, not necessarily as fully functioning heart trees, but simply as eyes since the crows can't be everywhere at once

[Black Crow]

... I had not necessarily made the direct connection to the Black Gate - but that is a tempting idea. The Black Gate is one of the topics that I felt most remiss in omitting from my OP... and while I know Heresy has considered it from other angles, from the perspective of its weirwood nature it probably deserves a closer look. Really, it would be difficult to overstate just how different that particular weirwood face is from any other we've seen: it's huge, it's animated, and it could add significant layers of meaning to what we know based just on the more "typical" carved faces. For instance, if the sacrifices made in the mouth of the "monstrous" Whitewood tree are to be taken as indicative... then the idea that Bran himself serves as a "sacrifice" looks rather clearly supported by the fact that he (with Jojen, Meera, and Hodor) passes literally into the mouth of the Black Gate to achieve passage between the realms. And Jojen's response to Sam's recognition of Bran (just prior to their descent) correspondingly takes on the tenor of ritual: "That boy is dead," he says, just before leading Bran to the giant weirwood mouth.

:agree:

The symbolism of passing between realms, especially later when Sam doubts whether he can find the gate again, is so in your face [sorry] its astonishing how it can be overlooked by so many.

[Hrafntýr]

Just so. You don't need a face to see through a tree. In fact, Bloodraven promises Bran that he will be able to see beyond the trees soon enough.

He does, though I still wonder if the weirwood with eyes isn't the conduit through which this will happen. We've not seen this yet, so we've no idea of the mechanics of it all; I just suspect that one can see only through beings with eyes, but I'm prepared to be wrong, in this as in everything!

I do think it's interesting that V6 has his experience of his spirit going into everything only after having the experience of going into the weirwood and looking through its eyes.

[Arya Havinfun]

Kingdom of the Ifeqevron :

The great forest of northern Essos, stretching from the Bay of Tusks and the Krazaaj Zasja mountains. The Dothraki have named it after the vanished people that once lived there, whom they called the "wood walkers". The Ifeqevron left behind one settlement in the forest, a place of carved trees and haunted grottoes now called Vaes Leisi - or "City of Ghosts" - by the Dothraki.

I'm not sure that I would call that confirmation that a race of CotF were living in Essos. Especially since the worldbook and the app are written by Maesters who would know about the Children. The comparisson seems so obvious and yet it is never made.

Maesters believe the CotF have been extinct in Westeros for several thousand years, so no surprise they don't give much weight to slim references to other vanished folk in the wilds of another continent. Grumpkins. Snarks...

[Arya Havinfun]

Let me leave you with this paraphrase:

The weirwood knows the gate. The weirwood is the gate. The weirwood is the key and guardian of the gate. Past, present, future, all are one in the weirwood. The weirwood knows where the old gods broke through of old, and where they shall break through again. The weirwood knows where the old gods have trod earth's fields, and where they still tread them, and why no one can behold them as they tread.

Please forgive my ignorance, but what are you paraphrasing here? It sounds like something I'd like to know better. Thanx!

[LynnS]

I think that it's a bit more likely that the faces were simply carved into these trees...

If your theory was correct, then ever tree in Westeros that someone had died before would have a face… & we have seen no evidence that this is the case...

It's not really a theory just an observation about those particular trees. I look for anomalies, patterns, glaring gaps of information. My intuition tells me that they are significant in some way and has meaning; because the author makes this trio stand out and connect thems to another trio at Moat Cailin. My impression when reading the passage was expressed by Jon's companion (I can't remember who went with him to Moles Town); when he said "This can't be good." Moles Town was sacked, prisoners sacrificed in the old way? I suggest this is an example that supports the question of human sacrifice asked in the OP. Also that the tree selected for each sacrifice had physical characteristics of the intended sacrifice as well as a likeness of their face. Is this essential for the spirit of the person/sacrifice to enter the tree?

I think you have to pull back the curtain on this one because it stands out from the norm.

Prologue, Dance with Dragons:

(Varamyr after being forced out of the Spear Wife)

The white world turned and fell away. For a moment it was as if he were inside the weirwood, gazing out through carved red eyes as a dying man twitched feebly on the ground and a madwoman danced blind and bloody underneath the moon, weeping red tears and ripping at her clothes. Then both were gone and he was rising, melting, his spirit borne on some cold wind. He was in the snow and in the clouds, he was a sparrow, a squirrel, an oak. A horned owl flew silently between his trees hunting a hare; Varamyr was inside the owl, inside the hare, inside the trees. Deep below the frozen ground, earthworms burrowed blindly in the dark and he was them as well. I am the wood, and everything that's in it, he thought, exulting. a hundred ravens took to the air, cawing as they felt him pass.

I wonder if this says something about greenseers and how their consciousness travels. It gives some meaning to the Haunted Forest, the old gods are waking and the cold winds are rising.

That Varamyr can't anchor himself to the weirwood suggest that one must be wed to the tree by the exchange of weirwood paste and human blood and that the carving of eyes into the trees with a blood sacrifice gives the greenseer the ability to pop in and out of these trees as a nexus point. (Now, that's a theory.. and a poor one at that. LOL)

[LynnS]

That would give it many similarities (and dissimilarities) to populus tremuloides, popularly known as the Quaking Aspen, which rarely sprouts seedlings, but commonly spreads as part of a root colony. They also have white bark, but grow extremely quickly, instead of very slowly. In fact, their reproductive strategy is to die out after fifty years, have a fire, and then send up new seedlings from the underground roots to recreate the grove.

They also grow at high elevations in . . . New Mexico.

Indeed and mushrooms as well.

[LynnS]

The passage is certainly an ambiguous one with a clear implication that the trees have indeed been carved and very recently by the newly "assimilated" Wildlings, keeping to the old ways, notwithstanding a conspicuous absence of actual weirwoods. Yet what makes Jon uneasy is not that the faces have been carved, but that they have been carved to "watch" the roads from the south, which rather suggests that there is a specific purpose to them and that they are indeed live so to speak.

This might in turn suggest that while weirwoods are the mother trees, for lack of a better description, others - including but not confined to the oak, ash and bitter thorn - may be used in extremis, not necessarily as fully functioning heart trees, but simply as eyes since the crows can't be everywhere at once

This makes me wonder about the Sentinel Trees as another form of watcher or guardian. I wonder if these are the guardians of the wierwoods at the God's Eye and if this is the connection to Howland Reed. It's counterpart, the Firey Hand at the Red Temple in Volantis.

[Arya Havinfun]

Given that Daenerys may be visiting Vaes Dothrak again in TWoW, we might get an "Old Nan" type story about the Ifequevron from the dosh khaleen. I've no doubt it will be just as reviling, but it might tell us something we'd like to know.

[Black Crow]

That Varamyr can't anchor himself to the weirwood suggest that one must be wed to the tree by the exchange of weirwood paste and human blood and that the carving of eyes into the trees with a blood sacrifice gives the greenseer the ability to pop in and out of these trees as a nexus point. (Now, that's a theory.. and a poor one at that. LOL)

Yes there's rather an air here of him going into the tree and being spat out again.

[Frey family reunion]

:agree:

The symbolism of passing between realms, especially later when Sam doubts whether he can find the gate again, is so in your face [sorry] its astonishing how it can be overlooked by so many.

Interesting, so does this mean that Bran has symbolically completed the three fold death?

Death by falling: his fall from the tower.

Death by wounding: when he goes into the Stark crypts and his doppleganger is flayed and displayed by Ramsay.

Death by drowning: his journey into the well and through the Black Gate, receiving a symbolic drop of salty water on the way through.

[Black Crow]

That's an interesting thought, piling yet more symbolism on to the passage of the gate.

[Amoracchius]

Yes there's rather an air here of him going into the tree and being spat out again.

That was my impression, too, but was he spat out because he hadn't been properly married to the tree, because he was guilty of violating the many skinchanger taboos Haggon taught him, or simply because he was a warg and had a second life waiting for him?

[LynnS]

Yes there's rather an air here of him going into the tree and being spat out again.

An abomination? One could achieve a kind of immortality this way. Can a greenseer extend his life beyond the expiration date?

[Black Crow]

That was my impression, too, but was he spat out because he hadn't been properly married to the tree, because he was guilty of violating the many skinchanger taboos Haggon taught him, or simply because he was a warg and had a second life waiting for him?

With the obvious caveat that we really don't know, I'd hazard a guess that its because he was an oik - the second life is nothing of the sort but rather a slow death.

[King of Winters]

With the obvious caveat that we really don't know, I'd hazard a guess that its because he was an oik - the second life is nothing of the sort but rather a slow death.

It's people who don't want to accept their death, and try to do anything to prolong their life. Sort of like Voldemort in HP. But it's whether it's automatic with wargs and skinchangers to slip into a skin when their dying or they have to do it themselves.

[Lord Martin]

Interesting, so does this mean that Bran has symbolically completed the three fold death?

Death by falling: his fall from the tower.

Death by wounding: when he goes into the Stark crypts and his doppleganger is flayed and displayed by Ramsay.

Death by drowning: his journey into the well and through the Black Gate, receiving a symbolic drop of salty water on the way through.

The suggestion of death by drowning is interesting... it sort of plays along with Patch Face's "under the sea" as an analog for "death."

[aDanceWithFlagons]

Has anyone mentioned the life of the Singers in comparison to the life of the weirwoods? Leaf tells us those who sing the song of earth were given long lives but not great numbers. The weirwoods are similar in that way.

Now that a lot of the Trees have been cut and burned and dwindled innumber, so have the Singers. Of course men have played their role in this, but I wonder if there is a more personal correlation.

[Black Crow]

Has anyone mentioned the life of the Singers in comparison to the life of the weirwoods? Leaf tells us those who sing the song of earth were given long lives but not great numbers. The weirwoods are similar in that way.

Now that a lot of the Trees have been cut and burned and dwindled innumber, so have the Singers. Of course men have played their role in this, but I wonder if there is a more personal correlation.

That rather conjures up the vision [not entirely flippantly] of those singers discovered hibernating in the caves sitting there on some kind of waiting list for the next available weirwood.