Thought on the CotF, Hammer of Waters, and IB

[BrainFireBob]

So the Children called the "Hammer of Waters" down 2-3 times:

1) Debatable- the Thousand Isles

2) Confirmed- the Arm of Dorne

3) Confirmed but failed- the Neck

pp 237

And so they did, gathering in their hundreds (some say on the Isle of Faces) and calling on their old gods with songs and prayer and grisly sacrifice (a thousand captive men were fed to the weirwood, one version of the tale goes, while another claims the children used the blood of their own young"

I believe it was a SSM that the CotF breed slowly, due to being so long-lived?

And I forget where in the books, but it is mentioned that when the CotF attempted to drown the Neck, they no longer had the power.

pp 178

The crown he wore was made of driftwood, so all who knelt before him might know that his kingship came from the sea and from the Drowned God who dwells beneath it..carved the first longship from the hard pale wood of Ygg, a demon tree who fed on human flesh . .slaying of Nagga, largest of the sea dragons, a beast so colossal that she was said to feed on leviathans and giant krakens and drown whole islands in her wroth . .built a longhall from her bones . .he ruled the Iron Islands for a thousand years, until his very skin had turned as grey as his hair and beared. Only then did he case aside his driftwood crown and walk into the sea, descending to the Drowned God's watery halls to take his rightful pace at his right hand."

We also have repeated references that there is no explanation for how the Ironborn reached the islands, since it is later that the First Men became sailors.

Ideas

Nagga's ribs are a weirwood grove stripped of branches and possibly ossified- Common theory

The Iron Islands sank during a Hammer of Waters event- possibly the same one that tried to sink the Neck

The CotF were unsuccessul because there weren't enough left for the blood magic. (If you think on it, the whole "greenseers in the trees" thing resembles storing greenseer power via a form of bloodmagic in the weirwood trees, for any living greenseer to tap),

Possibly the Ironborn disrupted the ritual?

Nagga "swallowed isles"- a clean reference to "Nagga" being a greenseer who called down the Hammer

The Grey King mythos stems from mashing details together

The driftwood crown: Most driftwood is whitened; from a combination of whether stripping and salt. Mayhaps this was a weirwood crown?

The Grey King was the "grey of the waters." Mayhaps he was actually albino? Grey eyes are a subtype of blue.

If so, perhaps his "throne" was a weirwood seat he was entangled in?

Perhaps the Drowned God was the extra-powerful Greenseer of Nagga's grove? Hence his being "Drowned" and the Grey King- if he was another green seer- going to "join his watery halls"- he went down to the cave and the weirwood roots, now underwater?

The demon tree that eats manflesh is, of course, a clear indicator of what weirwoods do when a greenseer is plugged in. Perhaps the Grey King was a First Man who disrupted the Hammer at the Neck? Or perhaps he is the Drowned God, and his "slaying of the demon tree" and "creating the first longship" and "wearing a weirwood crown" and all are a reference to them making the longship, at his direction, out of the trees of his grove?

Perhaps the whole thing is a twisted recollection of Nagga/Ygg (Nagga- Agga- Ygga-Ygg) the greenseer, whose halls were the roots (bones) of the weirwood in a hollow hill and who spoke and ruled for a millenium, but gave itself up and sank the peninsula as part of a Hammer of Waters event (joining the Drowned God, who is Nagga who is the Grey King).

Regardless, I think it's fairly clear that the First Men were already adopting the "old gods" of the CotF, and the "Drowned God" is the Ironborn remembering the greenseer of Nagga's hill, who is now drowned in the sea.

[TheSovereignGrave]

I think this is a rather interesting theory, and I'm actually willing to believe that the Iron Islands were the victim of a hammer of the waters but I do have some things to say. Firstly, I don't think this is evidence of the First Men already adopting the Old Gods; I think it's the First Men taking the original Gods they worshiped and changing it. I think that perhaps the Storm God represents the CotF/Old Gods, with the remains of 'sea dragons' being weirwood groves. You also have the fact that ravens are associated with the Storm God, I believe that a Drowned Man referred to skinchangers as unholy or something similar, and the Old Gods already have a minor connection to win (mainly the fact that the sound of the wind in the weirwoods is considered to be the voice of the Old Gods). I think maybe what happened was that the First Men originally worshiped a sea and wind God/Goddess (or maybe there were more with those two just having a special place) since you have the Sistermen who worshiped the Lady of the Waves and Lord of the Skies as well as the legend of Durran Godsgrief, and the Ironborn religion is the First Men's original religion twisted by the conflict with the CotF, essentially construing the CotF with the Sky God and thus demonizing it.

[Mithras]

There is heavy foreshadowing that Pyke will be hit by a Hammer of Waters sent by Bran.

I agree that the Iron Islands were hit by the Hammer before. Perhaps the CotF warred with themselves or giants or alien races assoicated with those oily black stones. I think it is possible that Iron Islands were connected to the mainland.

[Reginald blackfield]

My idea concerning the thousand isles:

The children inhabited ancient Westeros, the Kingdom of the Ifequevron and possibly Mossovy

The Men who inhabited what would later become the thousand isles invaded Mossovy

In order to repel them the Children casted a hammer of waters down onto the landmass destroying it and turning it into the thousand isles

Having much more success than they did with the first men in westeros the children continued to occupy the forests of Mossovy and presumably (if they ever did) still inhabit the forest today.

The hammer left the islands with an extreme fear of water as the sea had destroyed their once great civilisation, they also became severely Xenophobic as outsiders had done this to them.

[Archmaester Drew]

You should check out these threads (if you haven't already).

http://asoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/topic/116612-theory-the-storm-god-represents-the-cotf-fixed-quoting-issues/

http://asoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/topic/122532-mossovy-cotf/

:)

[LordToo-Fat-to-Sit-a-Horse]

All these differences, Archmaester Haereg asserts in his History of the Ironborn, are rooted in religion. These cold, wet, windswept islands were never well forested, and their thin soil did not support the growth of weirwoods

Thats because all that remains are what used to be mountains (?)

like the eyrie

It was the old days she hungered for. Prayed for. But who could she pray to? The garden had been meant for a godswood once, she knew, but the soil was too thin and stony for a weirwood to take root. A godswood without gods, as empty as me.

[Archmaester Drew]

Thats because all that remains are what used to be mountains (?)

like the eyrie

That, and what soil was there was largely washed away by the hammer of waters. :)